A Hercules in the Cradle: War, Money, and the American State, 1783–1867

Abstract

A Hercules in the Cradle is the second book by Max M. Edling, a lecturer in North American History at Kings College, London, offering a reinterpretation of the origins of the American Constitution and of the importance of monetary and fiscal policies in the emergence of a strong American state prior to the Civil War. The title of the book comes from a 1791 tract by a Swedish church minister in Philadelphia, using the mythological infant to suggest that the United States was “a defenseless infant surrounded by life-threatening snakes,” to argue for “the new nation's weakness and precarious existence” (p. 1). The new nation, however, as did the infant Hercules, defeated the “snakes” “and in a rapid and dramatic manner grew to achieve great-power status by the end of the nineteenth century” (p. 2). The myth was alluded to by Alexander Hamilton, who was to Edling the major figure in this U.S. achievement, by his design of the financial policies that led to the success of the United States in “many wars and the stupendous territorial expansion” (p. 5). Although Hamilton was responsible for the development of the use of public debt and the structure of the federal budget, these policies were later followed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The approved budgetary policy was to have a balanced ledger in times of peace, with the use of increased taxes and short- and long-term borrowing during times of war. Significant was the belief that any existing debt should be repaid in the ensuing period of peace, a policy to reassure both internal and foreign lenders that the new nation was financially stable.