Is the time right to dock Old Hickory?

[Panich52]

Steelhammer: Is the time right to dock Old Hickory?
by Rick Steelhammer, Staff writer


As much as I can get attached to the look and feel of one or more $20 bills taking up space in my pocket, I’m not sentimental about the guy whose image appears on the face of the folding money.

In fact, I’ve often wondered what it was that former President Andrew Jackson did to elevate him from relative obscurity to the ranks of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin as the subject of a cover portrait used to decorate American paper currency.

Jackson, who in his double sawbuck portrait looks a little startled himself to be fronting the bill, was, after a long hiatus, in the news again last week. A group called Women on $20s is calling for Jackson’s image to be replaced by that of a more deserving female figure from American history. The organization is calling for an unofficial popular vote to from a list of 15 candidates, ranging from Sojourner Truth and Clara Barton to Harriet Tubman and Eleanor Roosevelt, to select Jackson’s replacement.

In my view, Jackson is overdue for replacement. It was under his watch as president, and with his blessing, that the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was passed, clearing the way for the Trail of Tears -- the forced relocation of Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole and other American Indians from their homelands in the U.S. South to relatively barren and totally unfamiliar points west of the Mississippi. Once that mission was accomplished, more southern land was available for development by plantation owners like Jackson, who owned 150 slaves at the time of his death.

Putting those reasons aside, Jackson was an outspoken critic of paper money...

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http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20150308/GZ01/150309293

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International Women's Day - March 8

[virgogal]

1. I could not care less who's on the bill as long as it's legal tender.

[msongs]

2. maybe we could put ads on the cash...pay for its cost that way :-) nt

[TexasProgresive]

7. That suggestion sounds awfully r to me. n/t

[John Poet]

3. Jackson had two great moments

that I can recall...

Of course, turning back the British at the Battle of New Orleans in Jan. 1815,

and

when he threatened to hang the "nullifiers" in South Carolina, who were making some of their first noises about secession.. and they were forced to back down.


Nothing else in particular comes to mind.

[UTUSN]

4. Something "else in particular": That he was (better/worse) representative of the Common human n/t

[Cooley Hurd]

5. Great post!

Welcome to DU! </newyawker99>

I'm not a huge Jackson fan (although "5" rocked ), and would like to see Eleanor Roosevelt on the 20 spot!

[NYC_SKP]

6. Put Rosa Parks on the $50. Put Jefferson on the $20 and list the Bill of Rights.

Just for the nostalgia of the thing.

And we can change the $50 to include a great female historic figure, like Rosa Parks.

[Warpy]

8. I've always thought of him as a total dirtbag

because I knew descendents of Cherokees who refused to go in NC and descendents of Cherokees who did and barely survived out here in NM. He's there mostly because of the Battle of New Orleans. That shouldn't be enough to get a spot on the money.

Margaret Sanger was a complex and deeply flawed woman, but her tireless work of allowing women to control the number of children they had should earn her the spot. It liberated half the people in the country from having children they didn't want and couldn't care for and being old by the age of thirty.

Besides, it would be fun to see all the televangelists and bishops shitting bricks.

[YarnAddict]

11. Margaret Sanger

was a racist and a eugenicist.

So--really?

[Warpy]

12. Really.

She was deeply flawed, as I said, but the freedom she offered to half the human race can't be underestimated. Of all feminist icons, we owe the most to her. So do all the people who grew up wanted, not accidental and catastrophic.

[raccoon]

9. I'd like to see rock stars on our money. But I

would prefer any of the women mentioned to Jackson.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. I would much rather see artists, writers, teachers, scientists, than politicians on the dough.

You know, people who actually do something for humanity.

[monmouth4]

13. Since I'm originally from Jersey, either Bruce or BonJovi would work fine and they both

have contributed immensely to the human race...Yep, I definitely like this idea...