Debt was an inescapable fact of life in early America. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, its sinfulness was preached by ministers and the right to imprison debtors was unquestioned. By 1800, imprisonment for debt was under attack and insolvency was no longer seen as a moral failure, merely an economic setback. In Republic of Debtors, Bruce H. Mann illuminates this crucial transformation in early American society.
From the wealthy merchant to the backwoods farmer, Mann tells the personal stories of men and women struggling to repay their debts and stay ahead of their creditors. He opens a window onto a society undergoing such fundamental changes as the growth of a commercial economy, the emergence of a consumer marketplace, and a revolution for independence. In addressing debt Americans debated complicated questions of commerce and agriculture, nationalism and federalism, dependence and independence, slavery and freedom. And when numerous prominent men--including the richest man in America and a justice of the Supreme Court--found themselves imprisoned for debt or forced to become fugitives from creditors, their fate altered the political dimensions of debtor relief, leading to the highly controversial Bankruptcy Act of 1800.
Whether a society forgives its debtors is not just a question of law or economics; it goes to the heart of what a society values. In chronicling attitudes toward debt and bankruptcy in early America, Mann explores the very character of American society.
Industry Reviews
Bankruptcy, that familiar constant in an age of boom and bust, has a moral as well as financial component. Deservedly or not, in the early days of the American republic, shame and mistrust attached to a debtor who sought shelter and relief under the law...A fascinating work of economic history that sheds light on daily life in the young Republic. Kirkus Reviews 20021101 This new work from Mann...examines the relationship between creditors and debtors during late 18th-century America. He specifically focuses on the transformation of society's view of indebtedness from a moral failing to an economic one...This thoroughly researched work is an excellent resource. -- Robert K. Flatley Library Journal 20030101 In his new illuminating book...[Bruce Mann] identifies a fundamental societal change in attitude toward debtors...He traces the evolution of American attitudes toward debt and insolvency throughout the 1700s, culminating in the first federal bankruptcy law in 1800. -- Stephen Smith Books and Culture 20030401 In this gripping account of being in debt in the land of the free, Bruce Mann illuminates the origins of Americans' ambivalent relationship to business failure...Mann employs his considerable talents to bring to life a world where much that seems normal and logical to us now--like a unified currency, or the fact that you cannot pay off a debt if you are stuck in jail--was not. Mr. Mann's genius is to explain in clear and human terms the legal and economic intricacies by which early American creditors and debtors lived and died. -- Evan Haefeli Washington Times 20030209 Bruce Mann, a noted authority on early American law and society, offers an incomparable study of 18th-century indebtedness and insolvency, tackling a tough subject with clarity and sympathy...Anyone interested in the history of American law and business will find this an enlightening book. -- Christopher Clark Times Higher Education Supplement 20031017 Back [in colonial days] debtors were treated worse than thieves. In prison they had to foot the bill for their own food and heat, or else go without. In 1798, when yellow fever swept Philadelphia, all prisoners from city jails were evacuated to safety--all, that is, but the deadbeats. Bruce Mann, a law and history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says such harsh treatment reflected a culture in which failure to repay debt was regarded as a moral failing rather than a business one. How Americans' attitude toward debt changed is the subject of Mann's masterful (but largely overlooked) 2002 history, Republic of Debtors. -- Bernard Condon Forbes 20040112 Bankruptcy scholars and conventional legal historians aim to capture [societal and political tensions] by directing their attention to high legal text and their framers' original intentions. But for Mann, such documents serve only as points of reference on a journey whose aim is to understand contemporary cultural conceptions. Mann wisely identifies debtors' prisons, rather than legal texts or political discourse, as the path into his world...Mann uses the correspondence, memoirs, and pamphlets written by inmates to portray not only their miserable daily lives but also their cries for help...The 1800 Bankruptcy Act, amid controversy, narrowly passed. Mann is the first to narrate its passage authoritatively. -- Ron Harris American Historical Review 20040601 A landmark study of eighteenth-century financial failure. -- Jill Lepore New Yorker 20090413