The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776-1790
by: Ferguson, E. James

Softcover. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 358 pages with index. In The Power of the Purse, E. James Ferguson examines the intricate financial history of the American Revolution and the Confederation and connects it to political and constitutional developments in the period. Whether states or Congress should pay the debts of the Revolution and collect the taxes was a pivotal question whose solution would largely determine the country's progress toward national union. Ultimately, says Ferguson, the Revolutionary debt fulfilled an important purpose as a "bond of union." Ferguson's masterful analysis has become a classic among the literature on the American Revolution. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.