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Dodge then withdrew from the practice of law to devote his whole attention to the duties of a disbursing agent of the United States, for public works, to which he had been appointed two years previously. He held that position until 1841. He was also commissioner of insolvents during 1837 and 1838.

Jack Townshend told me that the other night the room next to the supper room was full of the insolvents or freebooters, and no supper served up; at last the Duke of Bolton walked in, ordered supper; a hot one was served up, and then the others all rushed in through the gap, after him, and eat and drank in spite of Brooks's teeth."

On the confines of the City and the Temple had been founded, in the thirteenth century, a House of Carmelite Friars, distinguished by their white hoods. The precinct of this house had, before the Reformation, been a sanctuary for criminals, and still retained the privilege of protecting debtors from arrest. Insolvents consequently were to be found in every dwelling, from cellar to garret.

The States would pass bankrupt laws, but they cannot; we can, but we will not. And between this want of power in the States and want of will in Congress, unfortunate insolvents are left to hopeless bondage.

In this case the applicants were referred to that section of the Constitution of the Exchange in which it is provided that members having contracts with insolvents shall close out these contracts in the Exchange when the securities involved are listed. The Exchange being closed, this provision answered the question without necessitating any independent action on the part of the Committee.

No persons of notoriously bad character, or who have had a dishonouring sentence pronounced against them, and no uncertified or unrehabilitated insolvents shall be eligible. They may not be related to each other in the relationship of father and son or stepson. No coloured persons or bastards shall be admitted into our Assemblies.

The severity of the law was certainly intended against fraudulent bankrupts only; and the statute of bankruptcy is, doubtless, favourable to insolvents, as it discharges from all former debts those who obtained their certificates. As British subjects, they are surely entitled to the same indulgence which is granted to other insolvents.

To such, therefore, I am so far from moving for any favour, either from the law, or from their creditors, that I think the only deficiency of the law at this time is, that it does not reach to inflict a corporal punishment in such a case, but leaves such insolvents to fare well, in common with those whose disasters are greater, and who, being honest and conscientious, merit more favour, but do not often find it.

Now, in this state of our constitutional powers and duties, in this state of our laws, and with this actually existing condition of so many insolvents before us, it is not too serious to ask every member of the Senate to put it to his own conscience to say, whether we are not bound to exercise our constitutional duty. Can we abstain from exercising it?

No coloured person or bastard, nor persons of public bad conduct, or those who have had a discreditable criminal sentence passed on them, nor any non-rehabilitated bankrupts or insolvents whatsoever shall be eligible as members of either Volksraad.