Miscellaneous Legislative Provisions , 
411 
The influence of the general point of view will betray itself in 
the determination of a great number of discretionary questions 
concerning the character of the legal proceedings employed. 
The acts which are to be construed as indicating insolvency 
must be carefully defined. The tendency is to establish both 
voluntary and involuntary bankruptcy proceedings, that is, to 
admit of petition either from the insolvent or from one or more 
of his creditors.- If on the one hand too slight a cause for peti¬ 
tion be allowed, the process may be abused as an ordinary means 
of effecting collections, while the opposite extreme allows the 
evil to accumulate and renders the creditor helpless to interfere 
at an early stage. * 1 
The point of the greatest importance, in the ultimate bearing 
of bankruptcy upon crises, is perhaps, as to what prevents the dis¬ 
charge of the insolvent, together with freedom from all incurred 
obligations. The examining court in England is not limited 
by a few special provisions but may avail itself of any of the 
general methods prescribed by law for the detection and judg- 
prisonment from one month to two years. The tendency in the United 
States is perhaps too much in the opposite direction. Cf. Morrill, 
“ Comparative Jurisprudence and the Conflict of Laws,” Boston, 1886, 
p. 219, also Thorold Rogers in Art. “Causes of Commercial Depression,” 
“Princeton Review” (N. Y.), Jan., 1879, p. 223, and in “Industrial and 
Commercial History of England,” Ch. VII, pp. 114-145. 
1 In 1841, a United States bankrupt law was passed. Voluntary and 
involuntary bankruptcy were allowed, but on such favorable terms that 
a great many applications were made under it. The law became un¬ 
popular and was repealed in 1843. Two other attempts at a uniform law 
of bankruptcy have been made in this country. One was in 1800, which 
President Adams says “was condemned as affording too much encourage¬ 
ment to fraud, waste, and a rash spirit of adventure.” The third law 
was passed in 1867. The United States Circuit and District Courts were 
made courts of bankruptcy, each having a prescribed jurisdiction under 
the terms of the act. This law was amended in 1874 and finally re¬ 
pealed in 1879. Since then numerous but unsuccessful attempts have 
been made to secure a federal law. The processes in the various states 
are fairly similar, resting, however, upon varying state provisions as to 
exemption. In the absence of a uniform law the state enactments are 
only limited by the provisions concerning the obligation of contracts 
contained in art. I, sec. 10, of the constitution. 
