The US National Debt, 1787-1900

Almost 8 trillion dollars: this is the size of the US national debt in the early twenty-first century. In this ambitious, four-volume edition Robert E Wright, a leading advocate of the finance-led growth hypothesis, assembles a broad selection of rare primary resource materials in the form of essays, reports, books and compendia informing on US public finances in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He investigates the debates put forward, from which comparisons with today's debt can be drawn. Some of today's historians already argue that financial development and government securities markets played a leading role in the economic growth of the US, Britain, Holland and Japan. Wright equally maintains that these factors were crucial to the progress of the modern nation state and democracy. With writings from the close of the eighteenth, through to the latter years of the nineteenth century, the contents list reflects the importance of studying national debt in detail, with international comparisons and over a long term. Like all institutions, this debt changed over time. Its impact on the economy, politics and governance evolved too, so pains have been taken to balance the selections chronologically. The pamphlets by McConnell, Aitken, and Bordley will help to improve scholars' understanding of the functioning of the debt markets for a crucial period before comprehensive data became available. The Livingston and Findley entries present various political interpretations of Alexander Hamilton's funding system. The Gallatin, Wolcott and Anon. 1843 pamphlets, in contrast, present the official government version of the debt. Cohen's compendium is important because it presents the view of an outsider, an early investment analyst, in a comparative context. Other selections are apologia, pro-debt propaganda, attempts at objective analysis, or policy prescriptions. All such perspectives are important because they help scholars to 'triangulate' between disparate or divergent views of this controversial but critical issue. Many long-neglected subjects, including the development of secondary markets for sovereign debt issues, are revisited here: The US National Debt brings together rare documents illustrating aspects of US financial history that have recently been overlooked. With a general introduction, endnotes, headnotes and a consolidated index, this edition will enable scholars to navigate through these sources with ease.