Navigation Be a Bankruptcy Lawyer
Jim Vickaryous
Robert Morris sits in a cold Philadelphia prison. It’s February 1798. A broken man, he looks older than his 64 years. Morris is not a violent man and has not stolen anything. In fact, he is considered a patriot, having done more than most to create a new republic, the United States of America. His only crime is owing the kingly sum of $3,000,000 in 1798 dollars to his creditors. Morris’ plight was disturbing to the revolutionary generation. They had fought eight long years to free themselves from the old regime. But yet, old customs such as debtors’ prisons still enslaved those who could not pay their debts. Prior to the American Revolution, Robert Morris was considered the wealthiest man in the Americas, perhaps even in the entire British Empire. His enterprises spanned oceans in a time when nobody had heard of the word globalism. Morris was credited with funding the American Revolution. When Continental Army soldiers shot at Hessian mercenaries, the musket balls whizzing toward the redcoats were paid for by Robert Morris. In whatever century a man lives in, neither wealth nor wisdom is infinite. Morris lost the last of his dwindling fortune in land speculation deals which failed in the Panic of 1796-1797. Within two years Congress enacted the first federal bankruptcy law, and Morris went free.
Bankruptcy begins etymologically with an image: banca rotta, the broken bench. In medieval marketplaces, a businessman’s bench would be smashed to publicly signal ruin. The language is blunt. Commerce is risky. People can fail. But law does not exist to celebrate ruin. It exists to manage its consequences. The broken bench becomes in law an invitation to order, a means to reorganize commerce and human life so that productivity and dignity may recover.
