A Great Moral and Social Force


Book Description

This publication offers a historical consideration of Black banking in the United States by focusing on some of the key individuals, banks and communities. While it is in no way a comprehensive history, it does include background that is essential to understanding each financial institution, its time, the events that led to its creation and the community of which it was not only a vital part, but very often a leader. Much of this history frames the world we find today.




On the Constitutionality of a National Bank


Book Description

In 1791, The First Bank of the United States was a financial innovation proposed and supported by Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury. Establishment of the bank was part of a three-part expansion of federal fiscal and monetary power, along with a federal mint and excise taxes. Hamilton believed that a national bank was necessary to stabilize and improve the nation's credit, and to improve financial order, clarity, and precedence of the United States government under the newly enacted Constitution. Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) was a founding father of the United States, one of the most influential interpreters and promoters of the Constitution, the founder of the American financial system, and the founder of the Federalist Party. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was the primary author of the economic policies for George Washington’s administration. Hamilton took the lead in the funding of the states’ debts by the federal government, the establishment of a national bank, and forming friendly trade relations with Britain. He led the Federalist Party, created largely in support of his views; he was opposed by the Democratic Republican Party, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, which despised Britain and feared that Hamilton’s policies of a strong central government would weaken the American commitment to Republicanism.




Financial Founding Fathers


Book Description

The authors chronicle how a different group of nine founding fathers forged the wealth and institutions necessary to transform the American colonies from a diffuse alliance of contending business interests into one cohesive economic superpower.




Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War


Book Description

This is a book about politics and banks and history. Yet politicians who read it will see that the author is not a politician, bankers who read it will see that he is not a banker, and historians that he is not an historian. Economists will see that he is not an economist and lawyers that he is not a lawyer. With this rather cryptic and exhaustive disclaimer, Bray Hammond began his classic investigation into the role of banking in the formation of American society. Hammond, who was assistant secretary of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1944 to 1950, presented in this 771-page book the definitive account of how banking evolved in the United States in the context of the nation's political and social development. Hammond combined political with financial analysis, highlighting not only the in.uence politicians exercised over banking but also how banking drove political interests and created political coalitions. He captured the entrepreneurial, expansive, risk-taking spirit of the United States from earliest days and then showed how that spirit sometimes undermined sound banking institutions. In Hammond's view, we need central banks to keep the economy on an even keel. Historian Richard Sylla judged the work to be "a wry and urbane study of early U.S. financial history, but also a timeless essay on how Americans became what they are." Banks and Politics in America won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1958.







Financial California


Book Description




The Origins and Economic Impact of the First Bank of the United States, 1791-1797


Book Description

This book focuses on the impact of the introduction of the First Bank of the United States (1791-1811) on the nascent financial system. The Bank dominated the financial scene of early America. Its prestigious list of clients included the United States Treasury, which deposited the bulk of the nation's money in the vaults of the Bank in return for various banking services. The stage is set by describing the background events of 1791: Treasury Secretary Hamilton's Bank Report and Congress's reaction, the script bubble for Bank shares, and the choosing of board members and their decision to create nationwide branches. The Bank's headquarters commenced business on December 12, 1791. New evidence shows how the Bank strongly affected the economy within two months of opening its doors, initially by flooding the market with its paper and then by sharply reversing course and curtailing liquidity. While the added liquidity helped initially to push a bull market in securities higher, the subsequent draincaused the Panic of 1792 by forcing speculators to sell their stocks. The role of early central banking is discussed in light of the Panic, the Bank, and the U.S. Treasury Department. Evidence is presented that points to a new interpretation: the Treasury Secretaries played the role of the Central Banker and the Bank acted the part of the Central Bank. There was continuity in the mindsets, dialogues and actions of the Treasury Secretaries, leading to a conclusion that early U.S. financial policy makers developed an operational central banking thought and procedures during the era of the First Bank. The financial implications of Bank policy on several historical events during the 1790's are examined. By focusing on specific times when the board directed a change in loan policy, new conclusions are drawn with respect to the Bank's impact on the credit markets and its central banking role. This book adds clarity to the ongoing historical debates about the behavior of the early U.S. economy and its creditmarkets by examining the institution which was at the center of the American business world at that time.




Reconstructing the National Bank Controversy


Book Description

The Bank of the United States sparked several rounds of intense debate over the meaning of the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause, which authorizes the federal government to make laws that are “necessary” for exercising its other powers. Our standard account of the national bank controversy, however, is incomplete. The controversy was much more dynamic than a two-sided debate over a single constitutional provision and was shaped as much by politics as by law. With Reconstructing the National Bank Controversy, Eric Lomazoff offers a far more robust account of the constitutional politics of national banking between 1791 and 1832. During that time, three forces—changes within the Bank itself, growing tension over federal power within the Republican coalition, and the endurance of monetary turmoil beyond the War of 1812 —drove the development of our first major debate over the scope of federal power at least as much as the formal dimensions of the Constitution or the absence of a shared legal definition for the word “necessary.” These three forces—sometimes alone, sometimes in combination—repeatedly reshaped the terms on which the Bank’s constitutionality was contested. Lomazoff documents how these three dimensions of the polity changed over time and traces the manner in which they periodically led federal officials to adjust their claims about the Bank’s constitutionality. This includes the emergence of the Coinage Clause—which gives Congress power to “coin money, regulate the value thereof”—as a novel justification for the institution. He concludes the book by explaining why a more robust account of the national bank controversy can help us understand the constitutional basis for modern American monetary politics.




A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind


Book Description

A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind describes the role of banking and money in history from ancient times to the present.