Commercial Associations and the Creation of a National Economy: The Demand for Federal Bankruptcy Law

Abstract

Throughout the nineteenth century, merchants and manufacturers involved in interstate commerce sought federal bankruptcy legislation to overcome diverse and discriminatory state laws that raised the cost of credit and impeded interstate trade. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, they formed a national organization to lobby for bankruptcy legislation. While many scholars have seen the passage of federal bankruptcy legislation as a response to the economic depression of the 1890s, this article shows that it was the formation of this national organization, rather than the economic crisis, that was the primary force behind the Bankruptcy Act of 1898.

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