Pung v. Isabella County · ¶85

American foreclosure law long imposed a similar requirement. “Until [the personal property] has been exhausted, no authority exists to go further.” Cooley 307; accord, e.g., 1792 N. C. Sess. Laws p. 23, §5 (government can “sell the [debtor’s land] or so much thereof as shall be sufficient for the payment of the taxes due,” but only if he first found that the debtor had “no visible personal property on which the Sheriff can distrain”); Miss. Code, Art. 1, §20, p. 902 (1848) (“No writ of [seizure] shall be levied on lands and tenements, if personal property sufficient to satisfy such execution be tendered to the sheriff, or other officer, by the debtor”). The tradition recognized that it is especially unjust to take a man’s home to settle a small debt when selling personal property would do.

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