The Costs of Founding a Nation
The title posed by Charles Rappleye’s lecture was “How Much Public Debt Can We Endure?” With President Obama’s words about taxes and a spending freeze still echoing off the walls in an adjacent room (it was the night of the president’s State of Union address), the question couldn’t be more relevant. In order to extract an answer, Rappleye delved deep into American history and into the life of a financier named Robert Morris. “What I can tell you is that debt and finance have been central since the beginning,” said …
