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Debt (NATIONAL by written obligation)

NATIONAL by written obligation unsealed; within which class fall bills of ex exchange, and promissory notes. Debt is also a personal action of contract, in which the plaintiff seeks the recovery of a debt, i. e., a liquidated or certain sum of money alleged to be due to him.

In the United States originally imprisonment of debtors was adopted as a part of the common law, but at the present time imprisonment for debt, except in case of fraud, or of an absconding debtor, does not legally exist in any of the States. Congress, empowered by the United States Constitution to make a uniform bankrupt law, exercised this power, and subsequently repealed the law of imprisonment; and now, by Revised Statutes 990 and 991, no person can be imprisoned for debt by any process issuing out of the courts of the United States, in any State where by the laws of the State imprisonment for debt has been abolished. Most of the States, by constitutional provision, have prohibited arrest or imprisonment for debt, while the other States, either by direct statutes prohibiting imprisonment for debt, or by poor debtors' laws, or by insolvent laws, secure the same result. In all the States a just and legal debt may be enforced and put in position for collection through attachment of property by means of a judgment issued by a court of competent jurisdiction. In all States, however, statutes specify a limitation, or definite term of years, for both debts and judgments, after which collection may not be enforced. The debt or judgment is then said to be "outlawed."

Such statutes also define the legal rates of interest which may be required on debts, either with or without judgment.

In general the law holds that a debt is an obligation based upon an agreement, which, if not expressed in a contract, verbal or otherwise, is definitely implied in a given transaction. This definition does not apply to taxes, which are held to be imposts levied by authority apart from all agreement; nor yet to fines incurred for misdemeanors, violations of duty, etc. Thus, while real property may be sold for non-payment of taxes, it may be redeemed at any time subsequently by payment of the principal and interest on the taxes due. This constitutes the gravest objection to acquiring a "tax title."