“Lomazoff presents a far more nuanced account of the constitutional politics of national banking. He convincingly demonstrates that the constitutional foundations of a national bank shifted over time and that this shift reflected in large part the changing functions of the Bank of the United States. The combination of economic, political, and constitutional development is first-rate, and the results shed new light on an important constitutional controversy.”

Mark Graber, University of Maryland School of Law

“A complex and sparkling reinterpretation of the debates over the constitutionality of the chartering of a national bank by Congress from its proposal by Alexander Hamilton in 1791 until its eventual dissolution in the 1830s. Whereas previous studies have portrayed this forty-year constitutional drama as a straightforward debate over the Necessary and Proper or Sweeping Clause of the Constitution, Lomazoff busts this pervasive myth by also highlighting the importance of the Coinage Clause. This is an important book.”

Alan Gibson, California State University, Chico

"Reconstructing the National Bank Controversy weaves together two strands of scholarship that have long been entirely separate...By showing how the issues of banking and monetary policy shaped constitutional arguments, Lomazoff puts the constitutional and economic studies in conversation. Lomazoff therefore fills a significant gap in the scholarship of American legal history and constitutional development...an important and valuable addition to the literature on the fifty-five-year constitutional debate over a national bank."

David S. Schwartz | Michigan Law Review

"Lomazoff argues that the controversy over the creation of the Bank of the United States was much more dynamic than a debate over the 'necessary and proper' clause of the US Constitution and was shaped as much by politics as by law. He finds that three forces—changes within the Bank itself, growing tension over federal power within the Republican coalition, and the endurance of monetary turmoil beyond theWar of 1812—drove the development of the key early dispute over the scope of federal power."

Law and Social Inquiry

“Eric Lomazoff’s book offers a substantial reappraisal of the constitutional debate on the National Bank of the US (1791-1832)… [It] is of great interest to history, political science, and law scholars of Early American banking... The methodological approach of the book makes it also a paradigmatic piece for historians of economics.”

History of Economic Ideas