Title: One nation under debt : Hamilton, Jefferson, and the history of what we owe /
Authors: Wright, Robert E. 1969-
Publisher: McGraw-Hill,
Year: 2008
Subjects: Hamilton, Alexander,; Jefferson, Thomas,; Debts, Public United States History; Budget deficits United States History; Government spending policy United States History; Debts, Public United States History; Budget deficits United States History; Government spending policy United States History; United States Economic conditions
Abstract: Like its current citizens, the United States was born in debt, a debt so deep that it threatened to destroy the young nation. Thomas Jefferson considered the national debt a monstrous fraud on posterity, while Alexander Hamilton believed debt would help America prosper. Both, as it turns out, were right. This book explores the untold history of America's first national debt, which arose from the immense sums needed to conduct the American Revolution. The author tells in riveting narrative how a subjugated but enlightened people cast off a great tyrant, but their liberty, won with promises as well as with the blood of patriots, came at a high price. He brings to life the key events that shaped the U.S. financial system and explains how the actions of our forefathers laid the groundwork for the debt we still carry today. As an economically tenuous nation by Revolution's end, America's people struggled to get on their feet. The author outlines how the formation of a new government originally reduced the nation's debt, but, as debt was critical to this government's survival, it resurfaced, to be beaten back once more. It is then revealed how political leaders began accumulating massive new debts to ensure their popularity, setting the financial stage for decades to come. The book traces critical evolutionary developments from Alexander Hamilton's creation of the nation's first modern capital market, to the use of national bonds to further financial goals, to the drafting of state constitutions that created non-predatory governments. The author shows how, by the end of Andrew Jackson's administration, America's financial system was contributing to national growth while at the same time new national and state debts were amassing, sealing the fate for future generations.
Contents: A twinkle in the eye : the importance of government debt -- Parentage : European precedents -- Conception : financing revolution -- Gestation : the Constitution and the national debt -- Birth : Alexander Hamilton's grand plan -- Youth and maturity : the public debt grows up, then slims down -- Life : the life and times of federal bondholders in Virginia -- Blessing : American economic growth -- Death and reincarnation : Jackson's triumph and failure.