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 late eighteenth century. It investigates the debates put forward, from which comparisons with today's debt can be drawn.

1. A Plan for the Payment of the National Debt by Means of a National Bank (1785) 2. An Essay on the Domestic Debts of the United States (1787) 3. View of the Principles, Operation and Probable Effects of the Funding System of Pennsylvania (1788) 4. National Credit and Character (1790) 5. Considerations on the Nature of a Funded Debt (1790) 6. A Review of the Revenue System … Wherein the Principles and Tendencies of the Funding System … Are Examined (1794) 7. The Memorial and Petition of the Subscribers, For Themselves and Others (1796) 8. A Correct Table Shewing the Net Amount of 6 Per Cent. Stock of the United States (1798) 9. Views of the Public Debt, Receipts, & Expenditures of the United States, 2nd edn (1801)