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Rhode Island, but he would not consent to do it at the expense of filling the House with an inconvenient number, and the old States should remember that their population will probably remain nearly stationary for the next ten years. Yet the new States may perhaps increase some, at least fourfold, before the next census, and they will be bound to abide until that time by the apportionment which shall now be made."

The bill fixing forty thousand as the ratio of representation was adopted. The Kentucky delegation divided. For the bill were Messrs. Breckinridge, Hardin, J. T. Johnson, and Smith; against, Messrs. F. Johnson, Metcalfe, and Woodson.

The first session of the Seventeenth Congress adjourned May 8th, and the second session convened December 2, 1822. All the members were present the first day of the latter session save Mr. Smith, who arrived the following day. Mr. Hardin was placed on the standing committee on commerce. Other members of the delegation were

assigned to standing committees as follows:

Post-offices, etc., Mr. F. Johnson; Public Expenditures, Mr. Woodson; Agriculture, Mr. New; Indian Affairs, Mr. Metcalfe; Foreign Affairs, Mr. Trimble; Military Affairs, Mr. Smith.

During this session Mr. Hardin spoke against the bill confirming claims to lots in Peoria; against the bill to incorporate the Naval Fraternal Association; in favor of the bill establishing a road from the mouth of the Miami on Lake Erie to the Connecticut Reserve; and also in favor of the resolution of inquiry as to who had suppressed parts of a letter accompanying the report of the Secretary of the Treasury. In the course of the debate on the bill to incorporate the United States Naval Fraternal Association for the relief of the families of deceased officers, Mr. Hardin expressed some interesting views on the subject of corporations, which have lost none of their force by lapse of time:

"It had always struck him, Mr. Hardin said, that a corporation could. not have any corporate rights out of the limits of the authority of the government that incorporates it. That was a point, however, which he would not press at present. But suppose this bill be constitutional, would it be expedient to pass it? The creation of corporations in any well-organized government ought to be avoided as long as possible. They are separate and distinct from the great body of the people. They are, if he might use the expression, like a counter-current in the great stream of legislation, and the multiplication of these counter-currents might in time prevent the great stream itself from flowing on.

"His own impression had been that the United States ought to avoid creating corporations of any description. The ground on which the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States had been sustained by the Supreme Court was, that it was necessary to enable the Government to collect and disburse the revenue. Had it not been for that, Mr. Hardin said, the Bank of the United States would have been deciared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Now, he asked, was the association proposed to be incorporated by this bill necessary to the general welfare, or to carry into effect any of the delegated powers of Congress? Not so, Mr. Hardin said. "But is it not, he asked, a dangerous principle to incorporate either the army or the navy, or any portion of them? They are formidable bodies, to whom it would be dangerous, and, of course, inexpedient, to give corporate powers. Supposing the bill to embrace the seamen as well as the officers; it would be but to extend the principle of the bill a little further than it goes now. What government has ever done such a thing as it was now asked of this Government to do? No one; nor did he know that such a thing had ever been even proposed in any other country."

The bill was defeated.

In concluding this notice of the Seventeenth Congress, brief reference will be made to the subsequent career of three of his colleagues, who are to be named no more in these pages.

Francis Johnson continued in the Lower House of Congress until 1827. He, with Mr. Clay, opposed the election of General Jackson in 1824. He was principal counsel for defense in the celebrated trial of John U. Waring, for murder of Richardson, at Frankfort, in 1838 or 1839.

Judge Thomas Montgomery closed his congressional career with the present session, and resumed the practice of his profession, of which he was an able member. He was afterward appointed circuit judge, in the Stanford district, and died in office, April 2, 1828.

David Trimble continued in Congress until 1827. After that, he engaged in agriculture and manufactures—in the latter extensively— contributing largely to their development in the State. He died at Trimble's Furnace, Ky., October 26, 1842.

Mr. Hardin, in the Constitutional Convention of 1849, thus alluded to him: Hardin was opposing a proposition to make the private property of all stockholders in corporations liable for corporate debts. He said it would interdict corporations in the State. The proposition, he said, is nearly as broad as that of David Trimble, when he offered a resolution in Congress. "He (Trimble) said he would take the world for his theater; that heaven should contribute to his speech;

the sun, the moon, and stars as his quarry, and with the indulgence of the House he would take a whack at eternity." Mr. Hardin insisted that the obnoxious proposition was the broadest whack at eternity he ever saw.

The labors of the session, taking them all in all, were neither exciting nor of great importance; but they were extended to the constitutional limit of time, and there-March 3, 1823-they ended.

Mr. Hardin was succeeded by his kinsman, Charles A. Wickliffe. He did not seek re-election. Why he did not, he afterward thus explained, in a general way: "I had the misfortune," said he, "and I rather consider it so than otherwise, from time to time to have had a seat in Congress; and I found I could not stand the sacrifice longer than for two or four years at a time. Then I had to quit and resort again to the practice of the law to repair the loss."

CHAPTER X.

RELIEF AND ANTI-RELIEF.

EITHER the auspicious termination of the war of 1812 nor the ensuing tranquillity of national affairs proved unmixed blessings to Kentucky. Hard times, very hard times, befell the growing young commonwealth. Western trade was yet in embryo. Labor was in slight demand, and poorly rewarded. Commodities of all kinds were cheap. Markets were distant and difficult of access, and but little money circulated.

In 1807, the first bank in the State, the Bank of Kentucky, had been established. In 1816, the United States Bank had been chartered (against which Mr. Hardin, as a member of Congress, had both spoken and voted). It established branches at Lexington and Louisville. Shippers of produce to New Orleans brought its proceeds home partly in molasses, sugar, and coffee, and partly in Spanish coin.

Notwithstanding these facilities for a circulating medium, the impression prevailed that hard times resulted because of the limited supply of money.

Gold and silver mines were scarce, unproductive, and distant. Banks, however, could be created, and banks could issue money and bring better times. Such was popular logic, and the idea was encouraged by the practice, but not warned by the experience, of continental times. In January, 1818, the Legislature, by one master stroke, chartered forty-six independent banks. All the chief towns were thus blessed, or supposed to be blessed, to say nothing of hamlets and small villages. The aggregate capital of these institutions was $8,720,000. With the one million dollars capital of the Bank of Kentucky and that employed by the branches of the United States Bank within the State, it would seem that all complaints about an insufficient circulating medium would have been finally hushed, and that, if plenty of money secured prosperity, this end was attained. But these comprehensive remedies, after all, proved ineffectual. Within a year, such of the forty-six banks as were in operation, and also the Bank of Kentucky, had suspended specie payment. The

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supposed cause was a pressure for specie by the United States Bank. In February, 1820, all the independent bank charters were repealed. But, in November following, the Bank of the Commonwealth, at Frankfort, was chartered, with a branch in every judicial district. It was authorized to issue three million dollars of notes. Dr. Sam Johnson was accustomed, when borrowing a shilling, to add the condition "never to be returned." These notes were based on a similar financial idea. They were not redeemable. The bank's capital was more nominal than real. It shortly took two dollars of its notes to represent a dollar in specie. Imagination will serve instead of description to depict the distress of debtors that ensued.

Almost every one was in debt, and a large percentage hopelessly So. Some idea of the general condition may be gathered from a letter, dated Springfield, August 30, 1823, written by John Pope to Governor Ninian Edwards, of Illinois, who entertained the idea of removing to Kentucky, and buying a farm. The following are extracts from that letter: "There are many fine, well-improved farms in Kentucky, in good neighborhoods, to be had on good terms and long credit, but few such to be exchanged for outlands. They are generally mortgaged or the property of the banks. * Some of the finest farms in the neighborhood of Louisville are substantially the property of the banks, and can be had on long credit and on good terms."

* *

Let it not be supposed, however, that the legislative arm was idle, in this emergency. It acted with as serene an indifference to all constitutional as of all financial principles. December, 1819, an act was passed by the Legislature to suspend, for sixty days, all judicial and execution sales. February, 1820, the right of replevin was extended from three to twelve months. In cases of imprisonment for debt (then an existing remedy in a creditor's favor), prison bounds. were extended to the limits of each county town. In December, 1821, imprisonment for debt was entirely abolished. The right of replevin was then extended from three months to two years, unless the execution creditor endorsed on the writ that notes of the Bank of the Commonwealth might be taken in payment.

How this course of legislation would have culminated, if uninterrupted, can only be conjectured. When it had reached this point, it was suddenly arrested by the adverse decision of a circuit judge.

In a case arising in the Bourbon Circuit Court in 1822, Judge James Clark decided the two years' replevin law unconstitutional, on

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