In the years immediately following the end of the Revolutionary War, the united states experienced a severe economic downturn, brought on by a variety of causes, that included British commercial retaliation, a collapse in domestic demand following the end of fighting, the flight of hard currency abroad, and a large increase in state taxes to pay off the war debt.1 “Per capita gross national product plummeted nearly 50 percent in the fifteen years after Americans declared independence.”2 In response to these hard economic times, a number of states enacted debtor relief legislation of various kinds, which became, along with anti-Loyalist laws, the second major impetus for the further development of judicial review.