Principle and Interest: Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Debt (Jeffersonian America)

Sloan, Herbert E.

ISBN 10: 0813920930 / ISBN 13: 9780813920931

Published by University of Virginia Press, 2001

About this Item

[Interesting provenance: From the private library of renowned historian, Philip D. Morgan.] Softcover. Good binding and cover. Shelf wear. Owner's name on front end page, else unmarked. "In six well-conceived, impeccably researched chapters, Sloan demonstrates that Jefferson was the consummate republican. Sloan's conclusion, that Jefferson's views about debt were not novel but rather bound him to his age and place, provides perceptive insight for understanding the victory of liberal capitalism over classical republicanism." - Gene A. Smith, Journal of the Early Republic From the professional library of Dr. Philip D. Morgan, a professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. Morgan specializes in the African-American experience, the history of slavery, the early Caribbean, and the study of the early Atlantic world. Morgan is the author of more than 14 books on Colonial America and African American history. He has won both the Bancroft Prize and the Frederick Douglass Prize for his book Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (1998).

Seller Inventory # 2207180003

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Principle and Interest: Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Debt (Jeffersonian America)
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813920930
• ISBN 13: 9780813920931
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 18 ounces
• Seller catalogs:
  • Business and Economics

About this title

Synopsis

In this acclaimed work, available here for the first time in paperback, Herbert E. Sloan examines Thomas Jefferson's complex and obsessive relationship to debt―its roles in his life and political career, and in the formation of republican ideology. As party leader in the 1790s, and later as President of the United States, Jefferson led a crusade against public debt, which he felt robbed the people of a future rightly theirs. Yet as a private person, he was plagued by debt, never free of it throughout his life. In this respect, Sloan argues, Jefferson was representative of his social class―most of the Virginia gentry had similar problems with debt, and similar feelings about it.

Taking as the central exposition of Jefferson's political vision his famous letter to James Madison on the rights of the living generation, Sloan explores in detail the events of 1789–90, when Jefferson acceded to Hamilton's plans for the national debt. The consequences of this decision would haunt Jefferson until the day he died.

Eloquently written and exhaustively researched, Principle and Interest provides a unique perspective on a range of topics―revolutionary ideology, political economy, the mechanics of party organization―central to an understanding of the period.

About the Author

Herbert E. Sloan is Professor of History at Barnard College.