Hello and welcome to a history of the United States.

Episode 168, Hamilton's Financial Plan.

Firstly, let's get the obvious out of the way. I'm recovering very well for my fall, and thank you for

all the nice messages that I've had. It's been very kind. But it's been now quite a few months

since we've had an episode, so let's just get straight back into it, shall we?

Last time out, we covered the establishment of the early federal government, and started exploring Hamilton's desire to recreate the British financial system.

Today, we'll start to get into how Hamilton set about chief tickets.

Within days of taking his office as Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton reported to Congress

that he viewed one of the most pressing masses facing the nation as credits.

Five months later, because he was Hamilton, he submitted a 40,000 page report on it

to Congress. So, what was the issue with credit and why was it important? To put it simply,

the United States was in significant debt. In episode 154, you might remember me saying that

the United States was $12 million in debt, mostly owed to the French, a figure which was

up from $8 million in 1783. If you do remember me saying that, firstly, well done, you have an astounding memory,

but also the thing to remember is that I was talking specifically about foreign debt.

Yes, those $12 million were owed to foreign bankers, but there was much more owed to the US citizens.

The state governments owed about $25 million of domestic debt,

while the federal government owed about $42 million.

The total added up to $79 million.

This was what kept Hamilton up at night.

Now, Hamilton, and everybody else at the time, thought that foreign debt needed to be paid off,

but the domestic debt was more complicated.

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