It is to insert after the words '' per annum"
in the second line, the following :
"But such rates may be contracted for as
Congress have or may hereafter allow on any
loans of the United States."
Mr. KENNARD. Before action is had upon
the motion to reconsider, I wish to say that I
hope the convention will reconsider. My
views have undergone some change with
reference tie the subject. My opinions have
always been in favor of six per cent., and
my action has adhered to that; but lam
somewhat unsettled in my views in reference
to it. I desire to conform to that which is
right and just, as far as I can; and I should
be glad to review this question. There may
be other gentlemen similar to myself in that
particular. I hope the motion to reconsider
will prevail.
Mr. NEGLEY. I hope that this report will
beopened, lam very glad to find that the
gentleman from Prince George's (Mr. Belt)
has supplied a bit of testimony which the
other day, on the argument of the case was
not at hand. I am very happy to find that
he has entirely overthrown the positions, as
to the law, of the gentleman from Anne
Arundel (Mr. Miller,) who assumed the other
day that the legal rate of interest in England
was five per cent., and read some decisions
then where parties, I believe, were arraigned
and convicted of usury. I suppose the de-
cisions are all right I replied to the gentle-
man at that time, taking the ground, not hav-
ing the statute by which the usury laws were
abolished in England, that the position as-
sumed by the gentleman from Anne Arundel
was false, because the Bank of England
changed its rate of interest just as the pres-
sure was upon the money market. If money
was abundant its rate of interest went down
perhaps to three and-a-half per cent.) and if
it was scarce it went up as high as eight or
nine per cent I argued from that fact that
it was not possible that the theory of the law
assumed by [he gentleman from Anne Arun-
del was correct. I am glad to find that I was
correct in the argument I then made. I hope
the convention will review this matter, Mary-
land is behind the age. The gentlemen from
Anne Arundel (Mr. Miller) and Kent (Mr.
Chambers) are eminent lawyers; but I do
not think they are eminent authorities upon
matters of finance. I would pay every respect
to their legal opinions, but I have not a sin-
gle particle of confidence in them as finan-
ciers.
Mr. MILLER. When the question is opened
for debate I wish to be heard upon it. I
must confess that I was not aware of this
statute repealing the usury laws at the time I
made my argument the other day. The date
of the law is 1854. The gentleman brings
to-day a manuscript copy, I suppose he saw
the origin ,I statute and has accurately copied
it. It certainly has not got into our recent |
law books on the subject, and I was not
aware that England bad gone so far as to re-
peal all her usury laws.
Mr. BELT. I trust the gentleman does not
mean to cast any doubt upon the fact.
Mr. MILLER. Not at all. I see the gentle-
man has obtained it. I had no access to it
myself. Of course I accept his version of it,
as the law of England at the present day.
All the remaining portions of the argument
which I had the honor to submit on that oc-
casion are just as forcible now as they were
at the time they were uttered. I stated that
the laws of England were like the old statutes
of Maryland. My information was from the
statute books, so fat as I had seen them, at
the time my remarks were made. But what-
ever England may have done, it is perfectly
clear that the commercial States of this coun-
try have not undertaken to go to the extent
of the original report about which we were
then arguing. And the usury laws of the
neighboring State of Pennsylvania are pre-
cisely the same as the usury laws of Mary-
land under our present constitution. So in
New York, with simply the exception that
New York allows seven per cent. as the legal
rate of interest.
Mr. CUSHING. Is the gentleman any more
sure that he now has the latest law of Penn-
sylvania and New York than he was the other
day that he then had the latest law of Eng-
land ?
Mr. MILLER. Yes, sir, I have the latest
volume of reports made in the State of Penn-
sylvania,; a volume published very recently,
containing a case in which an action was
brought by one man against another to re-
cover excessive interest paid under a contract,
and the law was sustained, and the judges
confirmed the policy of the usury law. It
was the law of the State of Pennsylvania and
the decision was made by the supreme court
of the State of Pennsylvania.
As I am up now, I may as well say about
this question that I have strongly settled
opinions upon the subject, and have always
had them) and I do not intend by any vote 1
give here to do anything to aid usury. If
you adopt the amendment proposed by my
friend from Prince George's (Mr. Belt) allowing
parties to contract up to ten per cent.,
you might as well say at once to-day that
the legal rate of interest shall be ten per cent.;
because if you give parties power to do it,
they will always contract up to that point.
Contracts will be made. If they are allowed
to go up to ten per cent., they will not lend
their money for six per cent. I have no sym-
pathy for, and no good feelings towards,
men who are in the proper sense of the term
called usurers, I am not going to do any-
thing which will help them to get usury, or
what I believe to be excessive rates of inter-
est. There is a great deal of good sense in
the old laws upon that subject; no matter |
