Book Reviews and Notices the federal government remaining at war's end." At first blush, the statement seems meaningless. The debt was created by the war and the methods of financing it. Part of it was owed to foreign and domestic lenders; part of it to the army and to individuals who had supplied goods and services on credit; a third part to the individual States. The whole of this debt, whether incurred before or after the adoption of the Act of Confederation, was by that instrument made a charge against the United States. The transformation of unliquidated into liquidated debt was a change of form, not of amount. Probably, however, Professor Ferguson is referring to the mode of discharging the debt. Throughout his book he draws a distinction between the common charges of the Union and the public debt. The former were to be paid out of requisitions; the latter, upon principles established by the Nationalists, out of a general revenue. It is true that the Nationalists recommended the establishment of a general revenue and its appropriation to the service of the debt, but they never thought that the rejection of their plan by the States was equivalent to its adoption. In 1783 Morris asserted the right of Congress to call upon the States for the immediate payment of their apportioned quotas of the whole debt; he conceded that, without a constitutional amendment, the debt could not be paid otherwise than by requisitions. One final remark: Professor Ferguson pronounces Morris guilty of embezzling eighty thousand dollars advanced to him as a member of the Secret Committee of Congress. The money was not applied to the purpose for which it was issued; it was not returned to the general treasury; therefore, Morris must have pocketed it; perhaps it was the foundation of his mercantile fortune. The verdict seems uncharitable. The calls for money upon the Secret Committee were very large; the doctrine of specific appropriation was unknown; why not assume that the sum in question was transferred by the Secret Committee from one head of public expenditure to another? The accounts of this Committee were eventually settled. The accounting officers of the Treasury made no finding of fraud; nor has Professor Ferguson produced any evidence that the accounts were cabbaged. Gamecock: The Life and Campaigns of General Thomas Sumter. By Robert D. Bass. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961. x -f- 289 pages, illus., sources and notes, index. |6.oo.) Reviewed by Theodore Thayer, Department of History, Rutgers University. Since the War for Independence biographies have appeared of most of the well-known leaders of the Revolution, However, this is the first life of Thomas Sumter who for his daring and love of battle became known as the Gamecock of the war in the South. Reared on the Appalachian frontier, Sumter saw service in the French and Indian War and 417