The founders and finance : how Hamilton, Gallatin, and other immigrants forged a new economy / Thomas K. McCraw.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McCraw, Thomas K.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Finance, Public--United States--History.

Finance, Public.

Monetary policy--United States--History.

Monetary policy.

United States--Economic policy.

United States.

United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783.

United States--History--1783-1865.

United States--Politics and government--1783-1865.

United States. Department of the Treasury--History.

Hamilton, Alexander, 1757-1804.

Hamilton, Alexander.

Gallatin, Albert, 1761-1849.

Gallatin, Albert.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 485 p. ) ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In 1776 the United States government started out on a shoestring and quickly went bankrupt fighting its War of Independence against Britain. At the war's end, the national government owed tremendous sums to foreign creditors and its own citizens. But lacking the power to tax, it had no means to repay them. The Founders and Finance is the first book to tell the story of how foreign-born financial specialists-immigrants-solved the fiscal crisis and set the United States on a path to long-term economic success. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas K. McCraw analyzes the skills and worldliness of Alexander Hamilton (from the Danish Virgin Islands), Albert Gallatin (from the Republic of Geneva), and other immigrant founders who guided the nation to prosperity. Their expertise with liquid capital far exceeded that of native-born plantation owners Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, who well understood the management of land and slaves but had only a vague knowledge of financial instruments-currencies, stocks, and bonds. The very rootlessness of America's immigrant leaders gave them a better understanding of money, credit, and banks, and the way each could be made to serve the public good. The remarkable financial innovations designed by Hamilton, Gallatin, and other immigrants enabled the United States to control its debts, to pay for the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and-barely-to fight the War of 1812, which preserved the nation's hard-won independence from Britain.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction

Part I. Alexander Hamilton 1757-1804

Chapter 1. St. Croix and Trauma

Chapter 2. New York and Promise

Chapter 3. War and Heroism

Chapter 4. Love and Social Status

Chapter 5. The Roots of His Thinking

Chapter 6. Robert Morris, Hamilton, and Finance

Chapter 7. The Constitution

Chapter 8. New Government, Old Debt

Chapter 9. The Fight over the Debt

Chapter 10. The Bank of the United States

Chapter 11. Diversifying the Economy

Chapter 12. Tensions and Political Parties

Chapter 13. The Decline

Chapter 14. The Duel

Part II. Albert Gallatin 1761-1849

Chapter 15. Choosing the New World

Chapter 16. Moving to the West

Chapter 17. Entering Politics

Chapter 18. Becoming Jeffersonian

Chapter 19. The Climb to Power

Chapter 20. Debt, Armaments, and Louisiana

Chapter 21. Developing the West

Chapter 22. Embargo and Frustration

Chapter 23. Dispiriting Diplomacy

Chapter 24. The Fate of the Bank

Chapter 25. Financing the Wayward War

Chapter 26. Winning the Peace

Chapter 27. His Long and Useful Life

Part III. The Legacies

Chapter 28. Immigrant Exceptionalism?

Chapter 29. Comparisons and Contingencies

Chapter 30. Capitalism and Credit

Chapter 31. The Political Economy of Hamilton and Gallatin

Notes

Acknowledgments

Credits

Index

Notes:

Formerly CIP.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674071353

0674071352

9780674067660

0674067665

OCLC:

835789719