Ward Hunt

“ It is not unnatural that the creditor should think that payment of the debt was right, and that it was the only right in the case. It is equally natural that the debtor should entertain a different opinion. The law holds it to be right that a debtor shall devote his entire property to the payment of his debts, and when he has done this that after-acquired property shall be his own, to be held free from the obligation of all his debts, just debts as well as unjust, principal debts as well as security debts. ”

“ Nothing is sufficient to revive a discharged debt unless the jury are authorized by it to say that there is the expression by the debtor of a clear intention to bind himself to the payment of the debt. Thus, partial payments do not operate as a new promise to pay the residue of the debt. The payment of interest will not revive the liability to pay the principal, nor is the expression of an intention to pay the debt sufficient. ”

“ What may be right between the defendant and his creditors is as difficult to determine as if he had no such standard. It is not absolutely certain that it is right for a creditor, seizing his debtor, to say, Pay me what thou owest, or that it is wrong for the debtor to resist such an attack. ”