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202 United States Sovereign Debt: A Thought Experiment On Default And Restructuringunderstanding of the attributes of a bankruptcy law. Instead, it likelywould be grounded on the proposition that the Framers never contemplatedthat the federal government itself would be an eligible andappropriate debtor to which a bankruptcy law could apply. Moreover,because the result of a bankruptcy discharge would frustrate thesubstance of Section Four, the later adopted Fourteenth Amendmentcould be construed to have revoked any power to discharge U.S. debteven if that power resided in the Bankruptcy Clause as originally adopted.But this is where the working assumption set out above wouldcome into play. 89 It is assumed that the Court would be highly motivatedto uphold the legislation in the face of an extreme financialcrisis. There being no textual bar in the language of the BankruptcyClause itself, it provides a convenient opening for a willing Court.Even if the Bankruptcy Clause could accommodate a bankruptcy lawfor the federal government, arguably implementation of Alternative1 would face another constitutional hurdle. Would a discharge of thenon-exempted Treasury obligations and the distribution of the ProsperityShares constitute an unconstitutional taking “for public usewithout just compensation” under the Fifth Amendment? 90 Manybankruptcy scholars are of the view that the powers of Congress conferredby the Bankruptcy Clause are governed by that clause and notthe Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, so long as such lawsenacted under the Bankruptcy Clause are applied only prospectively.91 Others have argued, however, that even powers that are withinthe scope of the Bankruptcy Clause must be tested under the TakingsClause. For example, Julia Forrester’s careful study of takings in the89 See text at notes 1-3, supra.90 U.S. Const. amend. V (“nor shall property be taken for public use, without justcompensation”); Julia Forrester, Bankruptcy Takings, 51 Fla. L. Rev. 851, passim;Thomas Plank, Bankruptcy and Federalism, 71 Fordham L. Rev. 1063, 1090 n.106(2002).91 James Steven Rogers, The Impairment of Secured Creditor’s Rights in Reorganization:A Study of the Relationship Between the Fifth Amendment and the BankruptcyClause, 96 Harv. L. Rev. 973, 986-89, 1031 (1983) (arguing that prospective legislationunder the Bankruptcy Clause could not constitute an unconstitutional takingunder the Fifth Amendment and that the Bankruptcy Clause, and not the FifthAmendment, controls limits on the power of Congress with respect to prospectivelegislation). As Julia Forrester has observed, ”[p]rominent scholars have accepted his[Rogers‘] conclusions without challenge.” Forrester, supra note 90, at 855 & n.15(collecting citations to articles relying on Rogers’ conclusions) (1999).