Ill 
COURT DECISIONS AND THEIR RECEPTIONS 
Banking and relief legislation had all been opposed, meas- 
ure by measure, by a small but vigorous minority in each com- 
munity in the state and at each session of the legislature. 
This minority argued vehemently that it was not a state’s 
business either to put a citizen into debt or to aid him directly 
to get out ; common sense, hard work, and thrift were the only 
real remedies for poverty. But the relief majority contended 
that a government existed to help its citizen at all times and 
especially when they were in financial distress. They even 
declared that depreciated currency was a blessing. It would 
not be accepted outside Kentucky as payment for products, 
and therefore home industries would be built up ; the govern- 
ment land offices would not take it, but that would keep Ken- 
tuckians on the land they already had and dissuade them 
from migrating — plausible theories for the time being, but 
all false in practice.^^" If the relief laws could have helped 
anyone, the assistance would have come to the army of small 
debtors of the state who owed more than $2,000,000. Gover- 
nor Adair in his message in 1823 said that if the property of 
this class of small debtors had been exposed for sale in a short 
period of time, it would not have brought more than a tenth, 
perhaps not a twentieth of its value. The relief party argued 
that its recent bank legislation had saved this class by fur- 
nishing cheap depreciated currency and forcing it by the re- 
plevin laws on the unwilling creditor. But there was a class 
of debtors who were so heavily involved that the banks could 
help them but little. Their aid came almost wholly from the 
baffling policy of the replevin and stop laws.^^^ It was from 
the ranks of the more extensive creditors and money-lenders, 
who had shown great patience and forbearance, that the oppo- 
sition movement to the relief measures slowly arose. From 
all over the state the creditor class began to insist that it was 
the province of the courts to protect their property and that 
the recent replevin laws were violations of contracts, the sanc- 
tity of which was guaranteed in both the federal and state 
constitutions.^^2 The larger creditors had never, as it was hoped 
“0 Niles’ Register, XXIII, 181. 
Ill /bid., XXV, 204. 
113 Doolan, in The Green Bag, XI, 177 (1899). 
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