Congress: Debt and Borrowing Money (Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution)

Patriot Lessons: American History and Civics (Constitution, Declaration of Independence, etc.)

United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8 provides:

• The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
• To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

Review the origins and debate over the authority to borrow money and hold debt as set forth in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.

Understand how the Articles of Confederation provided that the debts incurred by the states and Congress would be honored, and paying down the debt was a critical reason for adopting the Constitution. However, the Founding Fathers universally believed that the Congress under the Articles was incapable of paying the debt, and this weakness was a major reason for the calling of the Constitutional Convention.

Learn how although the Constitutional Convention originally agreed that payment of the debts was mandatory and Congress would assume the debts of the States, those provisions were omitted in the Constitution. Instead, Article I, Section 8 vests the Congress with the power to borrow funds on the credit of the United States and to pay its debts.

Discover how the Constitutional Convention originally agreed to create a constitutionally created Treasurer of the United States, and then agreed to eliminate the position.

Review how Anti-Federalists attacked the debt power as destructive to American liberties.

Explore how the debt provisions were essential to secure the good credit of the country, to repay creditors who funded the American Revolution and the Congress afterwards, and to ensure the security of the country in the future. Its abuse is to be kept in check by the reality that we elect the Congress that incurs the debt — they are accountable to We, The People.

Highlights include the Constitutional Convention, Articles of Confederation, the New Jersey Plan, the Paterson Plan, the Paterson Resolutions, the Randolph Resolutions, the Randolph Resolves, the Virginia Plan, James Madison, Shays’ Rebellion, Roger Sherman, Judge John Yates, Governor Edmund Randolph, Alexander Hamilton, Gunning Bedford, Jr., Elbridge Gerry, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Ellsworth, Governor Wiliam Livingston, Roger Sherman, Dr. William Samuel Johnson, Gouverneur Morris, United States Treasurer, Rhode Island Constitutional Convention, Edward Rutledge, Virginia Constitutional Convention, Anti-Federalists, Agrippa, Brutus, John DeWitt, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, House of Representatives, United States Senate, and more.

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Read the entire original, unamended Constitution here: https://patriotweek.org/2021/07/27/the-original-constitution-september-17/

Check out Judge Michael Warren’s book America's Survival Guide, How to Stop America's Impending Suicide by Reclaiming Our First Principles and History at Amazon or other major on-line retailers.

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