Principle & Interest: Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Debt

Sloan, Herbert E.

ISBN 10: 0813920930 / ISBN 13: 9780813920931

Published by Charlottesville & London: University of Virginia Press, 2001, 2001

About this Item

8vo, card covers, 392pp. An AS NEW copy of the paperback issue: sealed with a split in the shrinkwrap at the bottom edge, but no diminishment to the book therefrom.

Seller Inventory # ATLHESP&ITJPoDPB

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Principle & Interest: Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Debt
• Publisher: Charlottesville & London: University of Virginia Press, 2001
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813920930
• ISBN 13: 9780813920931
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New
• Seller catalogs:
  • United States History

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.