Cronyism

CHAPTER 7

PRESIDENT JEFFERSON: THE SUPREMACY OF MODERATION

Reforming the Judiciary

Unfortunately, the Republican Party quickly split into two factions, the Old Republicans who wanted to institute Antifederalist reforms and amend the Constitution, and moderates who desired only a slight trimming and reconciliation with the Federalists. President Thomas Jefferson, coveting an ever-expanding coalition, dropped his libertarian Note of Agenda and Spirit of 1798, eschewing Old Republicans John Randolph and John Taylor for James Madison and his ex-Federalist moderates. He appointed moderates to his cabinet and only partially dismantled the Federalist bureaucracy. Congress repealed internal taxes and decreased spending, but maintained land polices, tariffs, and naval expenditures. The Republicans let the Bank of the United States and state-level banking partnerships remain. Although Jefferson, an Old Republican at heart, tried to establish his Empire of Liberty, the corrupting nature of power ensured the survival of Federalist cronyism. Jefferson’s first corruption concerned appointing moderates, acquiescing to existing bureaucrats, and allowing Chief Justice John Marshall’s use of judicial review to protect the special privileges granted by prior administrations.

In March 1801, Jefferson filled upper-level executive positions with moderates. Secretary of state unsurprisingly went to the president’s Virginia ally, Madison, the preeminent moderate and opportunist. Secretary of the Navy wound up in the lap of Robert Smith of Maryland, the younger brother of the Congressman Samuel Smith, who previously gave assurances that Jefferson would not dismantle the Hamiltonian system. The Smiths, ex-Federalist merchants, planned to dominate maritime policy. Rufus King remained as minister to Great Britain while Jefferson awarded Robert Livingston and Charles Pinckney, ex-Federalists from New York and South Carolina instrumental in the election, ambassador posts to France and Spain. For the party press, the president passed over the radical William Duane and his Philadelphia Aurora for the moderate Samuel Harrison Smith (no relation) and his National Intelligencer. Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, a former Antifederal, stood out as the major exception. However, like Jefferson, Gallatin would support both Old Republican and moderate positions while in office.

Jefferson faced a more important task regarding rank-and-file appointments, particularly the Federalist judicial branch. For years, Hamilton employed staunch partisans to ensure loyal henchmen ran the government. Federalists passed the Judiciary Act of 1801 and engaged in midnight appointments to solidify their control, particularly by appointing judges, which the Constitution entrenched with lifetime tenure. Now playing the defense, the Hamiltonian Marshall planned to deploy judicial review (i.e., determining laws’ constitutionality) so he could protect Federalist cronyism, establish the Supreme Court as the sole constitutional authority, and declare Republican policies unconstitutional. In the face of this judicial cronyism, Old Republicans urged rotating out officials, repealing the Judiciary Acts of 1789 and 1801, and amending the Constitution so Congress could remove judges. But moderates only wanted Jefferson to limit the number of removals.

In this controversy Jefferson straddled the middle. He removed many midnight officials, bureaucrats who visibly abused their positions, and all attorneys and marshals. He also refused to acknowledge any of Adams’ undelivered commissions to various midnight appointments, a fateful decision. However, these removals, though admirable, were virtually all that Jefferson carried out, totaling roughly one-fourth of presidential class officials. The moderates in Jefferson’s cabinet reacted negatively when he attempted to make more removals. Jefferson’s moderation infuriated Old Republicans and even failed to please the Federalists he tried to court, who wailed at how the president dared to remove anyone at all. The president also vacillated over repealing the Judiciary Acts and grew silent on amendments.

Fortunately, Federalist hubris in December 1801 radicalized Jefferson. Four of the midnight justices whom Jefferson never appointed, including one William Marbury, initiated a lawsuit before the Supreme Court to ask for writs of mandamus requiring Secretary Madison to deliver their commissions. The Federalists arrogantly wanted to show the Republicans their firm grip on the judiciary. But their gall backfired horrendously, incensing Old Republicans and the president. Despite moderates’ waffling, in early 1802 the Republicans repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801. The repeal did count as a great reform, because Congress repealed the act and revoked new judges’ lifetime tenure by eliminating their offices, but Old Republicans remained upset Congress went no further. The judicial edifice of the Constitution and the 1789 Judiciary Act stood unperturbed, and Congress exercised no greater authority over removing entrenched federal judges than before.

Lo and behold, Marshall exploited this moderation. In Marbury v. Madison of February 1803, the Chief Justice declared that the four judges had a right to commissions but the court’s jurisdiction did not allow it to issue writs of mandamus. In it, Marshall utilized judicial review: the Supreme Court maintained the right to declare various acts of the federal government unconstitutional. Marbury v. Madison marked the beginning of the enormous growth in the Supreme Court’s power and influence—authority Marshall would use to solidify special-interest privileges.

Subsequent efforts to reform the judiciary and amend the Constitution proved to be equally unsatisfactory. Jefferson supported legally impeaching federal judges to provide openings for Republicans. Congressional Old Republicans removed Federal District Judge John Pickering in 1804, but after they failed to remove Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase future impeachment efforts evaporated. Even worse, after Chase’s acquittal Randolph called for an amendment that allowed Congress and the president to remove judges, but Jefferson gave it short shrift. The Republicans only passed the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, allowing electors to designate the president and vice president on their ballots to prevent another near-fiasco from happening again. The Twelfth Amendment did nothing to strike at Federalist judicial cronyism, let alone any cronyism: Hamilton favored it and actually went further, advocating that the people, and not the state legislatures, directly choose presidential electors. Most importantly, Jefferson only appointed moderates to fill Supreme Court vacancies, respectively in 1804, 1806, and 1807. He eschewed appointing strict constructionists and compact theorists, such as Old Republicans Judge Spencer Roane of the Virginia Court of Appeals or the law professor St. George Tucker of Virginia. He instead recommended moderates who quickly became acolytes of Marshall.

In the end, Jefferson’s desire to placate the opposition proved critical for the Empire of Liberty. The Federalist bureaucracy and Marshall’s dominance of the Supreme Court (and hence Hamiltonian constructionism) remained largely untouched. The Old Republicans grew disgruntled and began to drift away from the administration—an ominous sign for President Jefferson.

The Gallatinian Economic Program

Against the moderates, the Old Republicans strove to implement laissez-faire by decreasing revenue, cutting spending, defaulting on the debt, and passing a constitutional amendment to limit borrowing. Unfortunately, Jefferson forgot his 1792 Note of Agenda and earlier calls for a debt amendment. While Secretary Gallatin and Congress repealed the internal tax system, they limited action on tariffs and land policy and introduced no borrowing amendment. In addition, they only gradually cut spending, because a foreign war preoccupied Jefferson. These decisions resulted from Jefferson’s desire to appeal to Federalists—a classic illustration of power corrupting politicians into moderation.

At his inaugural, President Jefferson disavowed default but promised the people a “wise and frugal” government, and with Gallatin at the helm he did not disappoint. The former Antifederalist prepared his fiscal policy before Congress opened in December 1801, devising a tax-and-spend program that paid off the public debt. While this in itself was laudatory, Jefferson’s decision not to take the Old Republican route and build momentum for a borrowing amendment limited reform. Jefferson’s moderate decision can ultimately be traced back to his role in the 1790 debt assumption compromise and his desire to appeal to Federalist creditors, who worried about default and a debt ceiling.

Gallatin outlined his Antifederalist fiscal-military program in a November 1801 letter to Jefferson: “pretended tax-preparations, treasure-preparations, and army-preparations against contingent wars tend only to encourage wars.” The Treasurer understood that “defense” spending creates a vested interest group that benefits from outright war and promotes its continuance. Gallatin’s embrace of Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand starkly contrasted with Hamilton, who continued to support the Visible Hand’s higher taxes, subsidization of industry, expensive internal improvements, and militarism. Unfortunately for Hamilton and his imperial dreams, Gallatin flexed his Old Republican muscle in Congress: Speaker of the House Nathaniel Macon and Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee John Randolph.

The first item on the Republican agenda was revenue, particularly the hated internal taxes, such as the whiskey tax. Removing them in toto was not only popular; wholesale removal would cripple the Federalists’ civil service by eliminating the justification for employing so many government bureaucrats. Although a stern opponent of internal taxes, the moderate Gallatin was so fixated on paying off the national debt that he urged postponement. But Jefferson and the Old Republicans were adamant, and rightfully so, since as the years progressed wholesale removal would lose momentum and become more difficult to enact. Against this reform, Federalists argued that repealing internal taxes would increase dependency on tariffs, currently hovering around 30 percent. They tried to push for tariff cuts instead, using the argument that they disproportionately burdened the poor (Federalists conveniently forgot that they previously erected these burdens). However, what the Federalists really desired was to maintain some structure of internal taxes: it would be much harder to raise unpopular internal taxes in the future if Republicans repealed the entire system and whittled down the bureaucratic miasma.

Despite the protests, Randolph shepherded the repeal law through Congress in 1802. The result was dramatic: in 1800 internal taxes brought in 7 percent of revenue but by 1804 less than 1 percent. This confirmed the Federalist fears: the whittling down of the Treasury bloat was so severe that the total Treasury staff in 1801 (1,285 men) was actually greater than in 1826 (1,075 men). Thus, the Republican tax policy served as a quasi-structural reform.

But moderation still occurred. Even though Gallatin agreed with the Old Republicans’ free trade sentiments, he had no intention of lowering tariffs from 30 percent, because he wanted to pay off the national debt. The other major component of revenue—land sales—hardly provided the government a serious source of income. Admirably, Gallatin wanted to reform the land system by decreasing the minimum price and acreage as well as eliminate land sales on credit. Although he convinced Congress to reduce minimum acreage to 160 acres, he failed to eliminate sales on credit or lower the minimum price from $2 an acre. The desire to pay off the debt stymied the Republicans: they wanted to repeal the credit system and lower the $2 price, but the decrease in tax revenue would postpone debt payment. In the end, they moderated and maintained land prices while encouraging settlers to rack up debts. The compromise did not even raise much money: from 1801 to 1812, the US government sold a modest four million acres.

Second on the agenda was reducing spending and paying off the debt. Gallatin told Jefferson that given lower taxes, debt extinguishment required stringent military cuts. Secretary Smith naturally resisted, covetous of his budget. Gallatin frequently clashed with Smith, which meant he clashed with Smith’s older brother, Congressman Samuel Smith, chairman of the pro-merchant Committee on Commerce and Manufactures. The elder Smith actually supported increased military spending during the Quasi-War, because the US Navy’s subsidization of the shipping trade lowered his insurance rates. This was the very cronyism Republicans wanted to avoid. But Gallatin successfully slashed the military budget: from 1800 to 1802, government spending decreased 27 percent and the share of military spending declined from 56 to 27 percent. Unfortunately, moderation set in after the president fixated on a foreign war.

When Tripoli of the Barbary States demanded more tribute, the new president refused and the US entered another naval war. Jefferson failed to secure a congressional declaration of war, setting an atrocious precedent for executive overreach. In vain, Gallatin and Randolph protested to Jefferson that Congress should pay Tripoli because the cost of war would be greater than tribute and interfere with their retrenchment goals. But the adamant Jefferson pushed military spending back up. After collapsing 73 percent from 1800 to 1802, naval expenditures had increased 75 percent by 1805. Gallatin believed part of the splurge was due to Secretary Smith’s shipping background and he later accused the Smiths of embezzling war appropriations to their mercantile firm Smith & Buchanan. In addition, the Tripoli War forced Gallatin to request a slight increase in tariffs. Proponents argued for the tariff increases on the grounds that they would only be temporary, but Congress ended up making them permanent.

In 1803, Randolph perceptively noted that Federalists and moderate Republicans “who pant for military command and the emoluments of office” caused the war. Indeed, Randolph was on the mark, for Jefferson wanted to boost America’s standing in the world and win over pro-navy Federalists, especially northern merchants. Old Republicans could detect Jefferson’s courting from the beginning. In 1801, he appointed one of the Smith brothers to his cabinet and in 1802 appointed as Commodore of the Mediterranean Fleet the unqualified Richard Valentine Morris, nephew of ultra-Federalist Gouverneur Morris and brother of Lewis Robert Morris, a former Federalist congressman who helped Jefferson win in the 1801 House election. Once again, power corrupted a reformer: preserving Federalist military cronyism and using it abroad to win over a special-interest group. By June 1805, Tripoli sued for peace and ended tribute, but the US continued to make payments to the other Barbary States until 1816.

In addition to the Tripoli War, the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 stymied fiscal retrenchment. However, despite both moderations, the Jeffersonian Republicans still shrunk the federal government. From 1800 to 1808, tax revenue increased by 57 percent (from growing international commerce and not tax hikes), spending decreased by 8 percent, and the public debt fell by 31 percent. Thus, while the decrease in the national debt, from $83 million to $57 million (31 percent), resulted primarily from increases in tariff revenue rather than drastic spending cuts, the frugal-minded Republicans admirably did not use the revenue as a justification to increase spending and instead devoted it to paying off government loans.

However, the corrupting nature of power once again limited the extent of reform. Republicans failed to dismantle the Hamiltonian fiscal system they previously criticized by defaulting, utilizing severe budgetary reforms, and enacting structural amendments. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Old Republicans lamented the lack of significant change. Notably, the laissez-faire Taylor wanted to know why the Republicans previously complained of the Hamiltonian debt “paper systems” when they now “neglect[ed] to provide against them.”

The Bank Charter Struggle

Attacking the privileged BUS had always been Jefferson’s hobby-horse: in Notes of Agenda the hard money advocate wanted to repeal the charter and prohibit the government from dealing in bank money to end the crony partnership with banking interests. The anti-paper money Old Republicans optimistically believed the president would push for repeal and an amendment that would forbid future central banks. In addition, they eagerly looked forward to breaking the Federalist state-level bank monopoly by creating new state banks, taking over existing institutions, or destroying them. But moderation reigned supreme. Secretary Gallatin believed the BUS could be properly harnessed and state-level Republicans succumbed to the Federalists’ chartering practices, realizing that banks could provide financial support in elections. Republicans only failed to renew the BUS during the first term of Madison, Jefferson’s anointed successor, due to a rift among state banking interests. As usual, power corrupted liberty and the reform movement broke down.

When he entered office, Jefferson remained hostile to the Bank, the centralizing agent of Federalist corruption and corporate privilege. He supported weakening the “powerful enemy” and placing it on an “equal footing only with other banks, as to the favors of the government.” Jefferson still believed in his 1792 plan, envisioning a system where the government would eventually hold its own funds and separate from the banking business altogether. In the meantime, the federal government should transfer its deposits in the BUS and other Federalist institutions to new Republican state banks, which would counteract the Federalists’ influence. The president vividly demonstrated his sentiments in Rhode Island. In 1791, Federalists chartered the Providence Bank and the new institution operated as the only bank in the city for a decade. In July 1803, Gallatin received a letter from Providence Republicans currently establishing a Republican bank, requesting that the Jefferson administration transfer federal deposits from the Providence Bank to the new Roger Williams Bank. Jefferson enthusiastically agreed and transferred the funds.

However, Gallatin did not share Jefferson’s antipathy to central banking, much to the enmity of Old Republican Randolph and his monetary mentor Taylor. Gallatin argued that the bank’s branches allowed the government to easily transfer money across the country. In addition, though previously critical of the BUS’ lending practices, he now argued the institution could make loans to Congress when it was in trouble. Overall, he convinced Jefferson not to divorce the federal government from banking. This was an important failure, because by sanctioning the BUS, Jefferson implicitly sanctioned the Hamiltonian constructionism that birthed it in the first place. The BUS lived out the rest of its twenty-year charter undisturbed by the Jefferson administration. The lure of being able to use the bank for their own needs corrupted the Republicans into continuing its existence.

While President Jefferson unsuccessfully destroyed the central bank outright, at least the government’s involvement decreased and the institution partially privatized. By 1802 the federal government had sold all of its BUS stock. Moreover, from 1804 to 1812 the national debt declined 50 percent; correspondingly, the Bank’s holdings of federal debt fell 64 percent. The Federalist bank maintained a relatively high reserve ratio of 40 percent and operated cautiously to avoid political backlash from the Republicans in control.

Overall, the BUS’ conservative practices and the adverse clearing mechanism led to limited inflation: from 1800 to 1810 the money supply grew by only 15 percent (1.5 percent per year). Prices like-wise increased by less than 2 percent overall. However, the Bank still remained a crucial depository for coveted federal funds. This sizable subsidy from the federal government caused jealousy among the new state banking interests.

State banking blossomed during the Jefferson years as hard money Republicans realized that chartering new banks weakened existing Federalist banks and alleviated the problems they perceived were inherent to fractional reserve banking. In other words, while they did not support the laissez-faire solution of free banking, they admirably wanted to break bank monopolies by chartering additional competition, a quasi-reform. As Republicans battled Federalists in local political arenas, the number of state banks exploded from twenty-eight in 1800 to sixty-four in 1804, and then to 102 by 1810. However, when the Republicans tried to reform the monetary system they got their hands dirty. The crony corporate charter continued to exist, because banks provided valuable political support. The desire to increase their political base corrupted Republicans into granting the same type of monopoly charters the Federalists previously doled out. This can be seen in various states, particularly New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Since the Constitution, New York politics had devolved into a brutal struggle between the Clintonian Republicans and Federalists. Banking was not separate from this process, and to maintain control Republicans gave out bank patronage. In 1803, Republicans controlled the legislature. On behalf of Aaron Burr’s Bank of the Manhattan Company, they refused to charter Hamilton’s Merchants Bank in New York City. However, the Republican legislature granted a charter to the New York State Bank in Albany on the grounds that the existing Bank of Albany was too Federalist. The Republicans realized that the New York State Bank would be a loyal political supporter while the Merchants Bank would not. But politicians still wanted something from the New York State Bank, particularly bank stock they could later sell. Republicans eagerly accepted the rewards of playing favorites.

To make matters worse, Republicans kept new Federalist cronyism. When the Federalists regained control of the legislature in 1804, on behalf of the chartered banks they passed the monopolistic Restraining Act, which forbade unincorporated banks from issuing notes, a fatal hamstring to unchartered competition. The Federalist Merchants Bank did secure a charter in 1805, but only after they out-bribed the other state banks, and a physical altercation between two judges in the state senate occurred. When Republicans regained control of the legislature, they kept the restraining law to solidify banking support.

Pennsylvania experienced similar sordid politics. By 1803, the formerly Antifederalist Bank of Pennsylvania succumbed to Federalist control. Republican businesses and merchants complained that the existing three banks—the Bank of North America, the Bank of Pennsylvania, and the BUS—catered only to Federalist entrepreneurs. In response, Republicans created the Philadelphia Bank as an unincorporated association in September 1803. The Philadelphia Aurora heartily supported the institution’s plans for a charter, because the new bank would decrease the influence of other banks and grant loans to small businesses. But the Federalist Bank of Pennsylvania was prepared to fight.

In December 1803 the Philadelphia Bank applied for a state charter and offered various pecuniary incentives to the state: $15,000 for a ten-year charter or $20,000 for a fourteen-year charter. When a House committee reported favorably on the application, the Bank of Pennsylvania struck back, wailing about the reduction in profits. The House then submitted the charter application and the Bank of Pennsylvania’s protests to another committee, which ruled in January 1804 to not incorporate the newcomer. The committee endorsed an egregious Bank of Pennsylvania proposal: in exchange for a $200,000 down payment, the legislature would extend the bank’s charter to 1827, forbid any additional charters (except rechartering the BONA), and place restrictions on unincorporated banks.

But the Philadelphia Bank countered and insisted that its earlier proposal was “misunderstood”—the state misinterpreted the amount of money the business was offering! That sealed the deal, and in early 1804 the legislature debated a ten-year charter for the Philadelphia Bank in return for the more appropriately understood $135,000—not the misunderstood $15,000. The Bank of Pennsylvania protested by offering a $100,000 interest-free loan if the legislature blocked the charter. To the bank’s dismay, the state turned down the offer and Philadelphia Bank now operated with a charter.

To its credit, the Pennsylvania legislature soon recognized the basics of free banking, cogently declaring that the “evils” of the banking system “will probably find their most effectual remedy in . . . rivalship . . . [and] the fear of being called upon for specie.” Unfortunately, power, particularly the temptation of monetary bribes, corrupted the legislature. When the Bank of Pittsburgh and the Bank of Northern Liberties (in Philadelphia) opened in 1810 without charters, the legislature forbade unincorporated associations from various banking activities and later denied charters to the two institutions, forcing them to operate illegally.

Banking in Virginia was also deeply intertwined with political favoritism. At the beginning of Jefferson’s presidency, Virginia Federalists controlled the BUS’ Norfolk branch and the Bank of Alexandria. Hard money Republicans deprived the latter of its recharter in 1800 against strenuous Federalist protests. In 1805, the Republican legislature even forbade notes issued by the Bank of the Potowmac, a company in Washington, DC, technically outside the state.

The bigger battle concerned the Bank of Virginia’s charter. Initially, Federalists supported the institution more than the Republicans, who split over providing cheap credit to the business community and adhering to John Taylor’s anti-bank principles. In February 1803, while Republicans evenly split in the Assembly, Federalists overwhelmingly supported the bank bill and gave it the crucial margin of victory. However, Republicans killed the measure in the Senate. Despite this, in the following year pro-bank forces passed the bill, which might have been related to the bank’s promise to lend $300,000 to the state in exchange for one-fifth ownership. The corrupted Republicans proved to be no better than Federalist legislators, injecting partisanship in the Bank of Virginia: the Republican state treasurer overwhelmingly voted for Republican directors, recognizing that Republican directors wedded the party to the bank, a helpful ally in future elections. Clearly, Republicans stooped to granting charter privileges in Virginia.

Congress only eliminated the BUS in early 1811, during Madison’s first term, when the twenty-year charter had to be reissued. By this time, the ex-Federalist conveniently changed his mind on the Bank’s constitutionality. Interestingly, the battle lines split through the forces of liberty and power. Libertarians were torn, but not because of corruption. Old Republicans recognized that some moderates fought the recharter simply to embarrass Treasurer Gallatin, who was far too frugal for their liking. Old Republicans had to choose which poison—end the BUS or protect Gallatin—they thought would do the least harm. On the side of cronyism, state banking interests split over what privileges they preferred. Some, particularly in Philadelphia and New York, benefited from the BUS’ credit expansion. On the other hand, other state banks faced competition from the Bank’s interstate branches and desired the subsidy of government deposits. It is no coincidence that Senators Samuel Smith and Henry Clay fought recharter, because they heavily invested in Maryland and Kentucky banks. Prominent financial backers of the moderate Republicans also split, such as merchants John Jacob Astor and Stephen Girard. Astor opposed renewal because the BUS failed to provide adequate loans while Girard favored continuation because he had recently become the Bank’s largest stockholder in anticipation of recharter.

In this unusual stalemate, liberty won out, thanks to an aging Antifederalist. After the Senate voted 17-17, Vice President George Clinton decided in the negative on constitutional grounds. The government withdrew its deposits and divided them among twenty-one state banks—the goal of many anti-bank proponents. Despite much clamor, no financial crisis occurred, and the number of state banks increased from 102 in 1810 to 117 in 1811. The BUS finally died. However, by not repealing the charter and only failing to renew it, Republicans left open the door for the creation of another central bank that could more appropriately serve their interests. This happened in 1816.

During the early years of the Jefferson administration, the Republicans’ urge to expand their political coalition blunted bureaucratic, judicial, fiscal, military, and banking reforms. But they moved in the correct direction, and the long-run trend of intervention pointed downward. The Republicans had laissez-faire in their grasp; the Empire of Liberty was on the horizon. Unfortunately, matters quickly changed in 1803.

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American Political Leaders (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000), p. 290; Philip Burch, Elites in American History, vol. 1 (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1981), pp. 86–92; Noble Cunningham, The Jeffersonian Republications in Power (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina, 1963), p. 15; Richard Ellis, The Jeffersonian Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 19–24, 31–32, 51, 57; Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005), pp. 105–08.

Ellis, Jeffersonian Crisis, pp. 19–24, 235, 276; Murray N. Rothbard, “Bureaucracy and the Civil Service in the United States,” Journal of Libertarian Studies (Summer 1995): 28–31.

Ellis, Jeffersonian Crisis, pp. 32–39, 43–51, 57–66, 235; Rothbard, “Bureaucracy,” pp. 28–29.

Burch, Elites in American History, 1, pp. 108–09; John Miller, Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), p. 567; Norman Risjord, The Old Republicans (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), pp. 24–28; H. Arthur Scott Trask, “Thomas Jefferson,” in Reassessing the Presidency, ed. John V. Denson (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2001), pp. 72–77.

Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 22.

Ellis, Jeffersonian Crisis, p. 276; Gregory May, Jefferson’s Treasure (Washington, DC: Regnery History, 2018), p. 400; Rothbard, “Bureaucracy,” pp. 30–31; Herbert Sloan, Principle and Interest (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 196.

Thomas McCraw, The Founders and Finance (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2012), p. 235.

Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, pp. 73–74; Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American Civilization, vol. 1 (New York: Viking Press, 1946), p. 416; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, pp. 74–76, 107–10.

Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 5, ed. Richard Sutch and Susan Carter. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 82; David Johnson, John Randolph of Roanoke (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012), pp. 55–58; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, p. 106; Trask, “Thomas Jefferson,” pp. 49–50; Leonard White, The Jeffersonians (New York: Macmillan, 1951), p. 139.

Jeremy Atack and Peter Passell, A New Economic View of American History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994), pp. 258–59; Daniel Feller, The Public Lands in Jacksonian Politics (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp. 10–12; Historical Statistics, 5, pp. 82, 510; McCraw, Founders and Finance, p. 250.

Frank Cassell, Merchant Congressman in the Young Republic (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1971), pp. 90, 110, 113, 117–18; Historical Statistics, 5, pp. 80, 91; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, p. 82; McCraw, Founders and Finance, p. 250.

Risjord, The Old Republicans, p. 36.

Cassell, Merchant Congressman, p. 122; Historical Statistics, 5, pp. 80, 91; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, pp. 145–47, 183–84; McCraw, Founders and Finance, pp. 237–38; Risjord, The Old Republicans, p. 22; Glenn Tucker, Dawn Like Thunder (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963), pp. 152–53; Trask, “Thomas Jefferson,” pp. 52–56, 79.

Risjord, The Old Republicans, pp. 37–38.

Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, p. 64.

Howard Bodenhorn, State Banking in Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 13–14; Cunningham, Jeffersonian Republicans in Power, pp. 64–65.

John Devanny, “A Loathing of Public Debt, Taxes, and Excises,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (Winter 2001): 406–07, 409–10; Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 207; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, pp. 112–14; McCraw, Founders and Finance, p. 211; Richard Timberlake, Monetary Policy in the United States (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 9–10.

Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 3, ed. Richard Sutch and Susan Carter. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 181; Peter Rousseau and Richard Sylla, “Emerging Financial Markets and Early US Growth,” Explorations in Economic History (January 2005): 24.

Murray N. Rothbard, “The History of Money and Banking Before the Twentieth Century,” in Rothbard, A History of Money and Banking in the United States, ed. Joseph Salerno (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2002), p. 70; Timberlake, Monetary Policy, p. 16.

Bodenhorn, State Banking, pp. 14, 186; Hammond, Banks and Politics, pp. 158–61.

Anna Schwartz, “The Beginning of Competitive Banking in Philadelphia,” in Schwartz, Money in Historical Perspective (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 15.

Bodenhorn, State Banking, pp. 3, 141–42; Schwartz, “Competitive Banking in Philadelphia,” pp. 10–15; Andrew Shankman, Crucible of American Democracy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), pp. 119–20.

Bodenhorn, State Banking, pp. 15, 219, 222; James Broussard, The Southern Federalists (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), pp. 334–40.

Irving Brant, James Madison, Father of the Constitution (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950), pp. 137, 269–70; Burch, Elites in American History, 1, pp. 97, 120–21; Hammond, Banks and Politics, pp. 212–13; May, Jefferson’s Treasure, pp. 185–88; Risjord, The Old Republicans, pp. 110–17.

John Kaminski, George Clinton (Madison, WI: Madison House Publishers, 1993), p. 290; Timberlake, Monetary Policy, p. 16; John Holdsworth, The First Bank of the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1910), p. 105.