By another law, land could not be sold under execution
to pay a debt unless it brought three-fourths of its value as
appraised by a board of neighbors, usually themselves debtors and
interested in supporting values.
In 1823 the court of appeals of Kentucky declared the replevin and
stay laws unconstitutional. In retaliation the legislature, in
December, 1824, repealed the law establishing the court of appeals,
and a new court was created favorable to the "relief system." This
act the old court also declared unconstitutional, and a contest
followed between the "old court" and the "new court" parties, which
lasted until 1826, when the "old court," "anti-relief" party was
victorious. In the mean time, similar relief measures had been
passed in Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri, and other western
states.[Footnote: Summer, Hist. of Banking, I., chap. x.; ibid.,
122, 146, 157, 161; Durrett, Centenary of Louisville; McMaster,
United states, V., 160.]
The distress brought about by the panic of 1819, the popular
antagonism to the banks in general, and especially to the Bank of
the United States, as "engines of aristocracy," oppressive to the
common people, and the general discontent with the established
order, had, as we have seen, produced a movement comparable to the
populist agitation of our own time.
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