This volume assembles a broad selection of rare primary resource materials in the form of essays, reports, books and compendia informing on US public finances in the first half of the nineteenth century. It investigates the debates put forward, from which comparisons with today's debt can be drawn.

1. Harrison's National Debt: Assumption of the State Debts (1840) 2. The National Debt As It Was, and As It Is: Facts from the Public Records of the Treasury (1843) 3. The Americans Defended by an American: Being a Letter to One of His Countrymen in Europe in Answer to Inquiries Concerning the Late Imputations of Dishonour Upon the United States (1844)