the Judiciary. The bill went over, in the press of
business, to the second session, and passed the Senate on the 28th of
February, 1867.

A measure indirectly connected with the subject of reconstruction,
destined to have an important influence upon the future of Southern
society, was introduced by Mr. Julian on the 7th of February, 1866.
This was a bill for the disposal of the public lands for homesteads to
actual settlers, without distinction of color, in the States of
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida, providing that
the quantity of land selected by any one person should be eighty
acres, and not one hundred and sixty acres, as provided in the
Homestead Bill of 1862. The necessity of this measure, as shown by Mr.
Julian, arose from the abolition of slavery and the demands of free
labor. It was designed to cut off land speculation in the Southern
country. "Without some provision of this kind," said Mr. Julian,
"rebel speculators now hovering over the whole of that region, and
hunting up the best portion of it, and the holders of Agricultural
College scrip can come down upon it at one fell swoop and cheat the
actual settler, whether white or black, out of his rights, or even the
possibility of a home in that region, driving the whole of them to
some of our Western Territories or to starvation itself."

The bill was finally passed in the House on the 28th of February,
1867, with an amendment excluding from the benefit of the act persons
who have borne arms against the United States, or given aid and
comfort to its enemies.

A work of legislation of much importance, destined to have beneficent
effect upon the business interests of the country, was the passage of
the Bankrupt Law, which was finally enacted near the close of the
Thirty-ninth Congress. The Bankrupt Bill passed the House of
Representatives as early as May, 1866, but the Senate objecting to the
entire principle of the bill, it was postponed till December. On the
reaessembling of Congress for the second session, the consideration of
the Bankrupt Bill was resumed, and after much opposition in the
Senate, it finally received the support of a decisive majority in that
body of all shades of politics. The perfection and final passage of
this measure were among the last acts of the Thirty-ninth Congress.

The Bankrupt Law of 1800 was enacted in the interest of creditors, and
that of 1841 for the benefit of debtors. The law of 1867 was framed