First Bank of the United States established

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.2: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Domains

Banking

Dates

Date of occurrence 1791

Places

United States (Location)

Resources

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The infant United States would remain deeply divided about the creation of a central bank until well into the twentieth century. Fears of a centralised and oligopolistic state led Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans to oppose the Bank, whilst Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists argued that the entire country needed such an institution to act – as had the Bank of England since 1694 – as a funder of public debt, an issuer of a national currency, and a guarantor of the health of the nation's finances. Hamilton won the argument in 1791, and the country benefited considerably from the Bank's regulation of currency and ability to attract European investment which it could lend to state banks and individuals to fund development. However, the Democratic-Republican opposition…

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211 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "First Bank of the United States established". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 December 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=394, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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