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A Failed Nation - Pennies on the Dollar
In 1786 the Congress of the United States asked the thirteen states for 3.8 million dollars to pay the debts of the Revolution. It collected 663 dollars. This is the story of the broken money machine underneath everything else in these years — the crisis that drove an army to the edge of mutiny, ruined the richest man in America, and finally put muskets in the hands of farmers. A government that could not tax, only ask. Soldiers like Joseph Plumb Martin, who gave 7 years to the war and came home with a certificate worth pennies, sold to speculators driving about the country, in his words…
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