Report of the Select Committee on Imprisonment for Debt. Mr. Hough, from the select committee to whom had been referred so much of the Governor's message as relates to imprisonment for debt, made the following report:

That they have given the subject that careful and mature consideration which matter of such weighty importance demands; and have come to the unanimous conclusion that the existing laws allowing imprisonment for debt are unjust, impolitic and inconsistent with the spirit of our free institutions, and that they ought therefore to be repealed.

The reasonings which have induced this conclusion, they will briefly set forth, premising that at this period, and after so much has been written on the subject, it can hardly be expected that any thing new can be offered, and the committee will be fully satisfied if they can only bring home to the minds of the Representatives of the intelligent freemen of Michigan, a deeper sense of the impropriety and inefficiency of the existing laws.

It cannot but be acknowledged that it is one of the first and highest duties of every government to provide for the certain and equal distribution of justice among all classes of its citizens. This obligation flows from the chief objects of civil society, and the very nature of the social compact itself; men never would have bound themselves to perform the duties and endure the ties of society, and consented to divest themselves, in its favor, of a portion of their natural liberties, had it not been for the purpose, and with a view, of peaceably securing their own enjoyment and happiness, and of obtaining justice with certainty upon those who interfered to prevent this attainment.

Whatever, therefore, withholds the citizen from the accomplishment of an end so important and desirable, obstructs the most holy and legitimate purposes for which government was instituted. and greatly deceives those trusting individuals who have entered