It seems a fair occasion to take stock of Jackson's reputation and perhaps of what it means to put a person's face on our money. Feller guesses the resonance isn't intentional. The Indian Removal Act he passed resulted in the Trail of Tears; a forced evacuation of the Cherokee people that led to the death over 5,000 of the tribes citizens. What we dont need is Harriet Tubman on twenties. And we know that Black women are disproportionately represented as essential workers. News of the delay sparked the release of a debit card that bears her image and drew attention to anink stamp thatreplaced Andrew Jackson's face on a $20 bill with Tubman's likeness. The Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the new $20 notes. Abolitionist and women's suffrage activist Harriet Tubman was a . His Treasury secretary,Jacob Lew, askedfor public comment about who should be added. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/us/politics/tubman-20-dollar-bill.html. Though many see this as a victory, it is only a partial step in the right direction. McCarthy to Russian reporter: I do not support what your country has done to Hunters collapsing world: Why a criminal plea could now be the best option Trump, Fox News have a new point of tension: Tucker Carlson. The imagery of her face changing hands as people exchange cash for goods and services evokes for me discomfiting scenes of enslaved persons being handed over as payment for white debt or for anything white slaveholders wanted. Heres how paradise fought back. Jackson, too, enriched our democratic tradition. Mr. Mnuchin said that notes with new imagery could not be put into circulation until 2028 and that a future Treasury secretary would make the call whether to replace Jackson. This caused the Panic of 1837, a devastating depression in our nations history. In 2019,Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchinsaid the department needed to focus first on addinganti-counterfeiting steps and "security features." What's interesting is that, no matter who has been proposed in his stead, Jackson not Washington, Jefferson or Lincoln has always been the prime target for removal. This article was published more than7 years ago. To force the issue was to assert that the people couldnt be trusted with political powers. Erin Blakemore Trump has long alluded toJackson asone of his favorite presidents and selected a painting of Jacksonto be displayed in theOval Office, which Biden recently removed. That was in 1914, and on those first Federal Reserve Notes, Jackson made his debut on the $10. Hamilton, who started our nations economy, or Jackson, who almost destroyed it. "It's actually astonishing how completely the generalized public image has changed and how rapidly it changed," the historian said of Jackson's legacy. 5. Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. Every generation is entitled to decide its own priorities and honor its own heroes. DeSantis critical of China, hazy on Ukraine as he charts foreign policy path, Harriet Tubman will now appear on the $20, New ranking of U.S. presidents puts Lincoln at No. The problem, perhaps, is that the currency has remained unaltered for so long that any change in it begins to look revolutionary. About one-tenth of U.S. paper notes being circulated are 20-dollar bills. The Biden administration is speeding up the effort to feature a new face on the $20 bill: abolitionist hero Harriet Tubman. Please rate this article: Similarities between fascism and communism, Similarities Between X Chromosome and Y Chromosome, Similarities Between Natural and Social Sciences, Similarities Between Catholic and Christian. And yet, for nearly a century, aportrait of America's seventh president has graced the $20 bill something one new group wants to changeby replacing Jackson with a woman. Jackson's importance in American history is beyond question. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital Would she consider it an honor to have her likeness plastered on American currency? "The TreasuryDepartment doesn't have clear documentation," Kittell said. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons, Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons, MichaelXXLF - own scan. These two acts were awful because he made the Native Americans travel . Although Jackson was considered a popular figure during his time as President of the United States, he was also involved with many unpopular activities at the time. , Gene Balinggan, No Comment, April 10, 2023 HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. 1. The currency process, explained: Should the Harriet Tubman $20 bill be delayed? The answer may be lost to history. Want the full story? By Kittell's count, Jackson has appeared on 18 pieces of currency, including a $5 bill, a $10, a $50 and a $10,000. So does that mean he should stay on the $20? Sometimes, popular history has a way of turning the dead into heroes or villains. Nearly 200 years after his death,Andrew Jackson is stepping away from the United States' cultural consciousness. Nothing short, I am sure, of broad structural change together with specific and targeted systemic interventions to aid Black women and Black communities. Nearly a quarter of Black women live in poverty. Despite President Andrew Jackson's controversial legacy, he should remain on the face of the twenty dollar bill because of his viewpoints regarding voting, sound money principles, and National debt. ButFeller, the "Papers of Andrew Jackson" editor, said it's not surprising that the Treasury Department of 1928 would see Jackson as someone worthy of the honor. First, Jackson was the first commoner to become president after a string of six aristocrats in the White House. Let the choosing begin! Sen. Lamar Alexander, who like . Commentators like Slates Jillian Keenan have called for his removal from the $20, arguing that Andrew Jackson engineered a genocide. No really, we checked. 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. Consequently, six years later, Spain agreed to sell Florida to the United States to end persistent conflicts with Gen. Jackson along the peninsulas northern border. Abolitionists were those who sought to abolish the institution of slavery, through petitions, boycotts, speeches, literature and someadvocated violent means. The decision to have Ms. Tubman replace Andrew Jackson as the face of the $20 note was set in motion in 2016 by the Treasury secretary at the time, Jacob Lew. Anything else is downright disrespectful. Previously, the plan had been for a woman to share the $10 with Alexander Hamilton. But all forms of representation are not equal, and the desire to put a Black womans face on our currency represents a narrative of diversity and inclusion that is deeply ahistorical. Nearly 90 years have. And then the country turned around and built a prison system based on exactly the same premise, hence calls to abolish prisons, which depend in most cases on a massive amount of free Black labor to turn a profit. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, like many of his time who championed populist and progressive ideals,was a fan of Jackson's. The first stab at an impartial biography of the president makes that pretty clear. T he yearlong attempt by the U.S. Treasury Department to select a woman whose face will appear on future American banknotes came to a . But he was put on the twenty-dollar bill for a reason, not just randomly. What we can learn from Chernobyl's strays. The decision to use Tubman's likeness was initially made by the Obama administration in 2016, but had been delayed by former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin under President Trump. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Andrew Jackson, on the other hand, has a number of vocal detractors, led by the grassroots organization Women on 20s, which has ferociously lobbied for him to get the boot from the $20 bill. Andrew Jackson in some sense is an ironic placement on any paper currency in the United States. "It is to be regretted," he said, "that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.". Jackson's warning to the Carolina nullifiers of the dangers of political extremism makes riveting reading today. For some long COVID patients, exercise is bad medicine, Radioactive dogs? We fought a bloody war over this issue. He dominated his times so thoroughly that they came to bear his name: the Age of Jackson, or the Jacksonian Era. The U.S. Department of Treasury has not given a clear explanation about this particular speculation, but observers have pointed out that Jacksons strong resistance to the Central Bank may have actually played a big part in the decision of the Federal Reserve to put his face on the 20-dollar bill and proceed with circulating such paper-based money. Harriet Tubman debit card from OneUnited raises the question. Back then, Andrew Jackson wanted to continue using gold coins instead of paper-based money. Second, even though a southerner, Jackson stopped South Carolina from seceding in 1832 in a dispute over high tariffs, which the North favored but the South opposed. Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s magisterial "The Age of Jackson," published in 1945, contained a single fleeting reference to the subject in 523 pages of text. It's hard not to take it personally, as either a triumph or a desecration, depending on your point of view. The only portrait the secretary islegally required to printon a bill is George Washington, on the $1 bill. Articles with the HISTORY.com Editors byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan and Matt Mullen. ", "One thing that it can lead to is an understanding that some of these things are more complicated," Feller said. And Harriet Tubmans image gracing the new $20 note would certainly reflect that. He brought democracy to the White House both in person and in policy. On the reverse is an image of the White House. It is a continuing show of disrespect to keep Jackson on our currency when he so callously mistreated the Native population. And, in regard to the $20 bill, Andrew Jackson should go. From bad to worse: Student misbehavior rises further since return of in-person Saudi alfalfa sparks tension in Arizonas Sonoran Desert. If the result was a travesty, Andrew Jackson's reputation cannot and should not escape it. But Jackson wasnt always king of the twenty: in fact, he got his start on the $10 bill instead. We have been putting dead white statesmen on our coins for so long that its been unquestioned for some time now, says a Jackson scholar. I say lore because we all know that even if the symbol of the Confederacy had never been in the Capitol, Confederate ideas have found a hearty welcome there both in the past and in the present. We don't honor people on the currency just because they're important. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. In that context, Feller said, "who deserves more to be on American currency?" And yet, for nearly a century, a portrait of America's seventh president has graced the $20 bill something. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. With the Treasurys attention and the backing of millions, its time to reexamine Jacksons inclusion on our currency and make the case for an appropriate replacement. How this animal can survive is a mystery. He is considered one of the great US presidents. Not even the treasury knows why he was chosen all those years ago to replace Cleveland. Gift Article. , No Comment, July 30, 2022 Privacy Statement The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. Perhaps we could learn from the British. Does eating close to bedtime make you gain weight? For years, critics have called for Jackson to be removed from the $20 bill because of his legacy of supporting the institution of slavery and hisrole in the forced, violent transfer of tens of thousands of Native Americans from the Southon what became known as the Trail of Tears. It's not the . He persuaded Congress to modify the tariff and simultaneously grant him authority to militarily enforce it in South Carolina. Too often America attempts to atone for racism through style and symbol rather than substance. Other than being President of the United States, there are speculations that Andrew Jackson was featured on the 20-dollar bill because of his stand against paper money during his time. Jackson restored Americas confidence that our country was not merely a temporary experiment in democracy. Magazines, Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower. Over the years, the choice to feature Jackson on federal currency at all has become controversial, due to his policies while in office, which included the brutal removal of Native American tribes from their ancestral lands. When Jackson was placed on the $20, "it was unproblematic" to say that Jackson was a hero. Tubman claimed she never lost a passenger. My schoolbooks in the 1950s and 1960s said nothing about it. These two acts were awful because he made the Native Americans travel . He's heard "whole sentences" in her statements that are "almost directly quoted" fromJackson, including his famous bank-veto document. Inside South Africas skeleton trade. There's also Jackson's opposition to paper money in the first place (he preferred gold and silver), and his long, ultimately triumphant fight in the Bank Wars during his presidency. It's a Sign of Disrespect A congressional staffer departs holding a visual aid following a news conference regarding the. He eliminated wasteful spending and fired corrupt tax assessors for collecting personal bribes instead of taxes. She also worked as, Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat who co-chaired the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls, called it a basic pattern of bias and hate" of the Trump administration. The last time a portrait on a bill was changed was in 1929,when Alexander Hamilton was placed on the front of the $10 bill, replacing Jackson. 2 hours of sleep? Jackson isnow mostly remembered as an historical villaina slave owner whose major legislative accomplishment was the act that led to the Trail of Tears, in which thousands of Cherokee were forced from their land. We dont need America to put Black women on its money. They view it as progress, as a necessary and long overdue disruption of the American Founding Fathers narrative. , erwin , Leave a comment. Although some modern critics complain that Jackson should be dishonored because he was a slaveholder, historian H.W. On Monday, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said that the Treasury Department plans to speed up the process of adding Harriet Tubmans portrait to the front of the $20 bill. In the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, who had cut his political teeth opposing Jackson and his Democratic party, loved to cite Jackson's example in facing down the South Carolina nullifiers in 1832. President Donald J. Trump opposed the idea, and his Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, stopped work on that part of the currency redesign, arguing that adding new security features to the money was a more urgent priority. It didn't, really, for much of American history. Although Tubmans activities may merit recognition on another bill, she should not replace Jackson, whose contributions did far more to shape Americas destiny. The deadline for printing a new version of the $20 bill is 2030. But as it turns out, nobody seems to know for sure why a Treasury Department committee assigned Old Hickory's portrait to the bill. ", Here's the new plan for the $20, $10 and $5 bills (Video: Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post), Reporting and analysis from the Hill and the White House. I believe that representation matters, that it matters for a woman (with liberal values) to be president someday, that Black people and people of color should be in positions of leadership and decision-making in our government. Many have said that the people behind the Federal Reserve or Central bank have disliked Jackson so much that they wanted to sort of mock him by putting his face Philip Leigh has worked as a computer industry stock analyst. Regulators seize ailing First Republic Bank, sell remains to JPMorgan. Removing just one of them after that long stretch looks like a deliberate dethronement, like pulling a statue down from the public square. Anyone can read what you share. The following are 7 reasons why Andrew Jackson should be removed from the 20 dollar bill, and replaced with a woman. When a majority of voters in the southern states decided the same thing, slavery would end in the South. To the editor: President Trump made the absolute correct decision to keep Andrew Jackson on our $20 bill. American lore suggests that the Confederate flag had never previously entered the U.S. Capitol, even during the Civil War. So were exploring ways to speed up that effort. , Syed Hasan Many have said that the people behind the Federal Reserve or Central bank have disliked Jackson so much that they wanted to sort of mock him by putting his face on the dollar bill which he strongly opposed. This is, in truth, not the first push to get Jackson off the currency. In my belief Andrew Jackson does not belong on the 20-dollar bill, due to the simple fact of that in 1836 Andrew Jackson tried over throwing the U.S national bank because he believed that hard currency like gold and sliver should be used. After the war, Tubman became involved in the campaign for women's suffrage along withElizabeth Cady StantonandSusan B. Anthony, according to the National Parks Service. Consequently, the Confederacy might have survived, thereby splitting America into two countries. Its important that our money reflect the history and diversity of our country.. Hamilton should stay because, back in the 1790s when he was treasury secretary, he was right about all the economic issues. A long-building campaign to get Andrew Jackson off our national currency has finally culminated with the Treasury Department's announcement that Harriet Tubman will soon replace him on the front of the $20 bill. They rotate their currency routinely every few years. Not long ago there was serious talk of replacing him with Ronald Reagan. Yes, he fired his entire cabinet because of a social dispute, and came from a questionable background. The same faces all leading statesmen have been on our bills for more than 80 years now. We have a better historical understanding now of how those policies and structures continue to impact our society. That was in 1914, and on those first Federal Reserve Notes, Jackson made his debut on the $10. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. She purchased a home in Auburn, New York, in 1859 and established a home for the elderly. [This group wants to banish Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill]. A young New York senator, Martin. Who would we rather keep on a bill? Treasury watchdog to review delay of Harriet Tubman $20 bill design, painting of Jacksonto be displayed in theOval Office, anink stamp thatreplaced Andrew Jackson's face, The last time a portrait on a bill was changed, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. He shouldnt be on our currency., Those cries are increasing in number with the announcement that the next $10 bill will feature a woman. But American money, and our national romance with it, is the root of so many of our national evils. Historians have some ideas as to why putting Jackson on the $20 seemed like a good idea in 1928, when his face was selected to replace Grover Cleveland's. On the back of the U.S. 20-dollar bill is a picture of the White House, which is the residence and main office of the U.S. President. Neither Harriet Tubman nor any of the other proposed replacements can claim anything near that prominence. She escaped when she was around 27 years old, and shereturned to Maryland about 13 times to rescue as many as 70 enslaved people through the Underground Railroad, a network of escape routes and safe houses organized by Black and white abolitionists.
