Answer to Question 1
The student should emphasize, that, while debtors' prisons were abolished in 1833, over the course of history, creditors have come to rely on the court system to compel payments from debtors. Debtors face criminal penalties such as incarceration for contempt, fines, fees, and costs associated with debt collection.
Answer to Question 2
It depends on the individual jurisdiction. A title search reveals the legal description of the property transferred to confirm each prior grantor owned all of the property described. In some cases, the search may go back to the original land grant by the King or the federal government. However, many states have acknowledged the difficult task this length of search can be and enacted statutes declaring all deeds valid after a certain date, say 1960 . There would be no requirement to search beyond that date.
Still other states with an active title insurance industry have the added benefit of limiting searched to the last insured transfer.