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Tubman to Replace Jackson on the $20
We wish this was the final design.
The long-awaited move to place a woman on US paper currency is happening:
The Treasury Department will announce on Wednesday afternoon that Harriet Tubman, an African-American who ferried hundreds of slaves to freedom, will replace the slaveholding Andrew Jackson on the center of a new $20 note, according to a Treasury official, while newly popular Alexander Hamilton will remain on the face of the $10 bill.
Other depictions of women and civil rights leaders will also be part of new currency designs.
The new designs, from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, would be made public in 2020 in time for the centennial of woman’s suffrage and the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. None of the bills, including a new $5 note, would reach circulation until the next decade.
It was unclear whether details of the unexpectedly sweeping changes would win over some women’s groups, who had sharply criticized Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew for reneging on his 10-month-old commitment to put a woman on the face of the $10 bill, which is the one currently in line for an anti-counterfeiting makeover.
But in the months of taking public comments on what woman he should pick, Mr. Lew evidently bowed to the Broadway-stoked popularity of the $10 bill’s current star, Alexander Hamilton.
Instead, images of women are expected to grace the back of the new bill, with Ms. Tubman taking the top spot on a redesigned $20 further into the future.
Should Jackson remain? And, if not, do you think Tubman was the best choice?
Published in General
Hamilton wasn’t a President. Can we keep him?
Was Franklin ever elected to an office besides the Continental Congress? Part of what makes him so cool is that as a private citizen he was the most famous American in the world before George Washington, and he used that fame to help our cause.
Another missed opportunity.
Yes, but the redesigned bill must show him in this pose:
When I read the headline I naturally assumed Taft.
Indeed! But I’m sure the gun/rifle will not be on the new bill. Democrats don’t want to remind voters why guns are important.
I just legitimately laughed out loud at this.
If the bill design was going to be changed anyway, and if it were a requirement that Jackson’s face be replaced by a woman’s, then I think the best choice would have to be Ayn Rand – for her philosophy on value and the nature of money, and because it might just remind people that the paper should be backed with a tangible security (preferably gold), but mostly because the Left would lose their freakin’ collectivist minds.
She is the wrong color, but I love her anyway.
All joking aside, I’m surprised Madison isn’t on any currency or coin given how important he was to the Constitution’s creation. He’s been on rare bills in the past, but he’d have a stronger case than FDR, Ike, or Jackson.
What’s the word for something that is simultaneously depressing and hilarious?
Hilapressing?
Bernie.
Meanwhile, over at Slate:
Which White Guy Should Obama Replace When We Honor Him on Our Currency?
Babbles the author:
The writers on that site make my teeth ache.
I love the Tubman choice and I can’t wait to express surprise that Lew would honor a gun-toting Republican to all the Progressives that surround me every day. It’s so beautiful.
Or to add a line from Robby George: “a gun-toting, Evangelical Christian, Republican black woman”. And a native speaker of Nederlands.
The fact that people this willfully blind, stupid and sycophantic are allowed to publish anything is a testament to the 1st amendment.
They need to take all portraits off the money, all landmarks too. Make it look like Monopoly money since the way the government is creating it out of nothing it is eventually going to have the same value.
Yep. I noticed the party replacement. You can bet that the MSM will not mention it.
This “fact” is not so widely acknowledged in Syria, Libya, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Ukraine, to name a few.
She is a Democrat, just like Lincoln was. The parties swamped a while back. Didn’t you hear?
It’s fine with me. Jack Lew probably means it to draw conservative attention and energy away from his attempts to nationalize (socialize) the financial sector, but even if his motives were good, I’d say it’s a fine choice. Now let’s get back to encouraging Congress to claw back the vast powers it delegated to Lew and others of his ilk.
Brilliant.
One of these is not like the other. Which is it?
The obvious answer is Harriet Tubman, but not because she was female, black, or a former slave, but because unlike the others she was merely a minor player in our history. The others were all very important, some profoundly so.
Given that there are only seven denominations of bill (and six of coin), and given that through most of our history (and most of the history of the entire human race) women played a primarily domestic role, I’m afraid there isn’t a single woman who deserves to be on a bill or coin. No disrespect intended; the domestic role deserves enormous reverence, and the feminist revulsion against it is deeply perverted. But our currency should honor people who played important national leadership roles in our history, and that inevitably means mostly presidents.
I never quite understood why they picked Andrew Jackson, though. I think the most transformational (for the better) figure in our history who isn’t currently occupying the obverse center of one of our bills is James Madison.