Financial History Issue 122 (Summer 2017) | Page 21
over slavery threatened all three legs. To
defeat the forces of slavery, the leaders of
the Union expanded the fiscal capacity of
the state they had inherited from the early
republic. In the process, they strengthened
each of the three legs and established the
means to finance ambitious American gov-
ernments well into the 20th century.
W. Elliot Brownlee is Emeritus Professor
of History at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. His most recent book is
Federal Taxation in America: A History,
Third Edition. Cambridge, UK: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2016.
Sources
Becker, Robert A. Revolution, Reform, and the
Politics of American Taxation, 1763–1783.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press. 1980.
Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power: War, Money
and the English State, 1688–1783. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. 1989.
Brown, Roger H. Redeeming the Republic:
Federalists, Taxation and the Origins of
the Constitution. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press. 1993.
Brownlee, W. Elliot. Federal Taxation in America:
A History, Third Edition. Cambridge. United
Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. 2016.
Edling, Max. A Hercules in the Cradle: War,
Money, and the American State, 1783–1867.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2014.
Einhorn, Robin. American Taxation, American
Slavery. Chicago: University of Chicago. 2006.
Ferguson, E. James. The Power of the Purse: A
History of American Public Finance, 1776–
1790. Chapel Hill: University of North Caro-
lina Press. 1961.
Handlin, Oscar and Mary Flug Handlin. Com-
monwealth: A Study of the Role of Govern-
ment in the American Economy: Massachu-
setts, 1774–1861, Revised Edition. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press. 1969.
Legler, John B., Richard Sylla and John J. Wal-
lis. “US City Finances and the Growth of
Government, 1850–1902.” Journal of Eco-
nomic History. Vol. 48, pgs. 347–356. 1988.
Rabushka, Alvin. Taxation in Colonial Amer-
ica. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
2008.
Sylla, Richard. “Long-Term Trends in State
and Local Fin ance: Sources and Uses of
Funds in North Carolina, 1800–1977,” in
Long-Term Factors in American Economic
Growth, ed. Stanley L. Engerman and Robert
E. Gallman, National Bureau of Economic
Research, Studies in Income and Wealth,
Vol. 51, pgs. 832–35. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press. 1986.
Sylla, Richard. “Shaping the US Financial Sys-
tem, 1690–1913: The Dominant Role of Pub-
lic Finance,” in Richard Sylla, Richard Tilly
and Gabriel Tortella, eds., The State, the
Financial System and Economic Moderniza-
tion, pgs. 249–270. United Kingdom: Cam-
bridge University Press. 1999.
Wright, Robert E. One Nation Under Debt:
Hamilton, Jefferson and the History of What
We Owe. New York: McGraw Hill. 2008.
www.MoAF.org | Summer 2017 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 19