American Taxation, American Slavery

by Robin L. Einhorn

Overview

In American Taxation, American Slavery, Robin Einhorn shows the deep, broad, and continuous influence of slavery on America's fear and loathing of taxes. From the earliest colonial times right up to the Civil War, slaveholding elites feared strong and democratic government as a threat to the institution of slavery. Einhorn reveals how the heated battles over taxation, the power to tax, and the distribution of tax burdens were rooted not in debates over personal liberty but rather in the rights of slaveholders to hold human beings as property. Along the way, she exposes the antidemocratic origins of the enduringly popular Jeffersonian rhetoric about weak government, showing that state governments were actually more democratic--and stronger--where most people were free.
A strikingly original look at the role of slavery in the making of the United States, American Taxation, American Slavery will prove essential to anyone interested in the history of American government and politics.
"For those seeking to understand complex and ever-changing systems of taxation, their relationship to local and national politics, and how the state and local systems were shaped by the 'peculiar institution, ' this seminal and innovative investigation will provide many answers."--Loren Schweninger, American Historical Review "[Einhorn] tells what might have been a complicated story in an engaging and accessible manner. It is her contention that slavery and the reaction to it to a great extent shaped the kind of nation we are today, because it shaped the kind of tax policies we constructed to fund the kind of government we got. . . . Required reading for anyone who ponders the impact of slavery on our lives today."--James Srodes, Washington Times

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226194882
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	05/15/2008
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	399
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Robin L. Einhorn is professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Property Rules: Political Economy in Chicago, 1833-1872, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

List of Tables, Figures, and Maps
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Prologue: Taxation without Representation
 
Part I - Colonial Tax System
1. Virginia
2. Massachusetts
3. Variations

Part II - National Tax Debates
4. The Origin of the Tariff
5. Direct Taxes
 
Part III - The Synthesis in the States
6. Property Taxes

Epilogue: James Madison on Slave Taxes
Appendix: How to Talk about Taxes
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

"[Einhorn's] book is a treasure chest of informaiton about taxation in the colonies and early republic. She has written her work forcefully and lucidly; it is well worth the time of anyone interested in American Studies, as well as in the culture of slavery."

James L. Hustonn Studies

"A valuable entry in the growing and much-needed literature examining the exact impact that slavery had on the American state in the early republic. . . . The book aims at nothing less than revising the central story that most Americans have accepted about the growth of the national state."

Journal of the Early Republic - Matthew Mason

"[Einhorn] tells what might have been a complicated story in an engaging and accessible manner. It is her contention that slavery and the reaction to it to a great extent shaped the kind of nation we are today, because it shaped the kind of tax policies we constructed to fund the kind of government we got. . . . Required reading for anyone who ponders the impact of slavery on our lives today."

Washington Times - James Srodes

"With prodigious research . . . Einhorn's masterful narrative challenges the conventional Jeffersonian story about the Southern yeoman origins of American liberty and anti-statism. . . . A book that needs to be read by those who continue to subscribe to the resilient Jeffersonian myth that liberty and democracy require weak government."

Law and Politics Review - Ajay K. Mehrotra

"Einhorn has undertaken important research in archives and in secondary sources on a major set of historical problems. This book will influence the analysis of colonial and antebellum tax systems, and it raises anew some of the central issues of colonial and antebellum history. The arguments are clearly and strongly made. . . . This book deservedly will be widely read and discussed."

Journal of American History - Stanley L. Engerman

For those seeking to understand complex and ever-changing systems of taxation, their relationship to local and national politics, and how the state and local systems were shaped by the ‘peculiar institution,’ this seminal and innovative investigation will provide many answers.”

Loren Schweningern Historical Review

"[Einhorn] scrupulously details the direct and indirect ways in which human bondage structured American taxation policies during the eighteenth century and the continued legacy of slavery for modern taxation. The result is a pathbreaking contribution to scholarship on antebellum constitutional politics. . . . This detailed study of federal and local tax policy is a remarkable easy read. American Taxation may be the most surprising page-turner of the early twenty-first century."

H-Net Book Review - Mark A. Graber

"[Einhorn's] book is a treasure chest of informaiton about taxation in the colonies and early republic. She has written her work forcefully and lucidly; it is well worth the time of anyone interested in American Studies, as well as in the culture of slavery."

American Studies - James L. Huston

For those seeking to understand complex and ever-changing systems of taxation, their relationship to local and national politics, and how the state and local systems were shaped by the ‘peculiar institution,’ this seminal and innovative investigation will provide many answers.”

American Historical Review - Loren Schweninger