But it is not necessary to go all the way to England to find bankrupt laws having relation to currency. The act passed in our own country, about forty years ago, applied to bankers; the bill brought into the House of Representatives, about fifteen years ago, by a gentleman then, and now, a representative from the city of Philadelphia, [Mr. SERGEANT,] also applied to bankers; and the bill brought into this Senate, ten years ago, by a senator from South Carolina, not now a member of this body, [General HAYNE,] still applied to bankers. These bankers, of whom there were many in the United States, and of whom Girard, in the East, and Yeatman and Woods, in the West, were the most considerable--these bankers all issued paper money; they all issued currency. The act, then, of 1798, if it had continued in force, or the two bills just referred to, if they had become law, would have operated upon these bankers and their banks--would have stopped their issues, and put their establishments into the hands of assignees, and distributed their effects among their creditors. This, certainly, would have been having some relation to currency: so that, even with our limited essays towards a bankrupt system, we have scaled the outworks of the banking empire; we have laid hold of bankers, but not of banks; we have reached the bank of Girard, but not the Girard Bank; we have applied our law to the bank of Yeatman and Woods, but not to the rabble of petty corporations which have not the tithe of their capital and credit. We have gone as far as bankers, but not as far as banks; and now give me a reason for the difference. Give me a reason why the act of 1798, the bill of Mr. SERGEANT, in 1821, and the bill of General HAYNE, in 1827, should not include banks as well as bankers. They both perform the same function--that of issuing paper currency. They both involve the same mischief when they stop payment--that of afflicting the country with a circulation of irredeemable and depreciated paper money. They are both culpable in the same mode, and in the same degree; for they are both violators of their "promises to pay." They both exact a general credit from the community, and they both abuse that credit. They both have creditors, and they both have effects; and these creditors have as much right to a _pro rata_ distribution of the effects in one case as in the other. Why, then, a distinction in favor of the bank? Is it because corporate bodies are superior to natural bodies? because artificial beings are superior to natural beings? or, rather, is it not because corporations are assemblages of men; and assemblages are more powerful than single men; and, therefore, these corporations, in addition to all their vast privileges, are also to have the privilege of being bankrupt, and afflicting the country with the evils of bankruptcy, without themselves being subjected to the laws of bankruptcy? Be this as it may--be the cause what it will--the