A LETTER TO THE HON. MICAH STERLING, MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW-YORK, ON THE EXPEDIENCY OF ADOPTING A UNIFORM SYSTEM OF BANKRUPTCY IN THE UNITED STATES

New York: Printed by E. Conrad, 4 Frankfort-Street, 1822. 52pp. Disbound with light scattered foxing. Title page with some spotting. Good+.

Charles Glidden Haines (1793 - 1825), attorney and author, became Governor Clinton's private secretary. Admitted to the New York bar in 1821, he wrote political pamphlets, newspaper articles, and published the United States Law Journal during 1822-1823. Haines was co-counsel with Henry Clay at the Supreme Court in Ogden v. Saunders, a case involving the constitutionality of New York state bankruptcy laws. Governor Clinton appointed him adjutant general for the state in 1825, but Haines died in New York City before taking office.
Congress had passed its first and only Bankruptcy Act in 1800, but repealed it in 1803. The 1800 law had authorized creditors to place the debtor in bankruptcy and seize his assets. Unlike later bankruptcy laws, it had not allowed debtors to choose bankruptcy. Congress's power was based on the Constitution's grant of authority to establish "uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies."
Sterling [1784-1844], Haines's correspondent, was a New York Federalist lawyer serving his only term in Congress. Haines urges him to support a federal bankruptcy law. Provisions for bankruptcy are "the inevitable result of things in a commercial community ... No man will say, that in a commercial nation, where credit is given, there will not be misfortunes, calamities, and losses of various kinds, by which contracts will be violated, and the debtor and creditor left to a legal recourse to settle their concerns. Hence there must be laws to specify what shall be the power of the creditor, and what shall be the protection of the debtor."
Cohen 2489. Sabin 29549.