Posted on 08/21/2010 7:17:45 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
Today, the U.S. Treasury released a $1 coin commemorating former President James Buchanan. And people aren't happy about it.
To understand why, some background is helpful. In 2007, thanks to a bill promoted by then-Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire, the Treasury began minting $1 coins with the likenesses of former Presidents, starting with George Washington.
The coins -- which have been appearing ever since, featuring a new President every three months -- are meant to improve use and circulation of America's dollar coins, which are often seen as an awkward misfit among currency, neither fish nor fowl.
Sununu's initiative drew inspiration from the 50 State Quarters Program, which launched in 1999. The runaway success of that effort, according to his legislation, "shows that a design on a U.S. circulating coin that is regularly changed... radically increases demand for the coin, rapidly pulling it through the economy."
The bill also suggested that a program wherein Presidents are featured on a succession of $1 coins, and First Spouses commemorated on gold $10 coins, could help correct a state of affairs where "many people cannot name all of the Presidents, and fewer can name the spouses, nor can many people accurately place each President in the proper time period of American history."
So the bill passed, and the Washington dollar coin appeared not long after. It was followed by Adams, Jefferson, et al., with the First Spouse coins minted alongside.
Now we're up to Buchanan, the fifteenth President, who took office in 1857 and turned things over to Abraham Lincoln in 1861, and whose coin (produced at the Philadelphia and Denver Mints and purchasable through the U.S. Mint website) has occasioned the aforementioned grousing. Here's where some feel the coin program is falling short:
1. The coins aren't circulating.
Many Americans have never gotten into the habit of using $1 coins, and as a result, over a billion commemorative Presidential coins are sitting around in a stockpile at the Federal Reserve. As BBC News reports, if these coins were stacked up and laid on their side, they'd stretch for 1,367 miles, or the distance from Chicago to New Mexico.
2. They don't seem to be educating people, either.
In February 2008, a year after the first presidential coins were minted, The New York Times reported that a survey had found large numbers of American teens to be woefully ignorant of their country's history. It was far from the first time Americans had gotten a dismal grade in history, suggesting that Sununu's commemorative-coin campaign isn't having much of an effect in that arena, either.
3. James Buchanan was kind of a crappy president.
In fairness, this is a grievance with a specific president, not the presidential coins program as a whole. Still, it seems to come up in all the coverage of the new coin: Buchanan wasn't very good at his job.
That's the consensus of historians, anyway, who have traditionally censured Buchanan for his failure to prevent the Civil War. Last year, a C-SPAN survey of historians granted Buchanan the dubious distinction of worst president ever.
Still, all of this isn't reason enough to declare the commemorative-coins program a total failure. If more coin collectors start avidly pursuing the presidential coins, it could have the effect of pushing down the national debt, thanks to the way the value of the coins fluctuates with their availability. And if the dollar coins were to catch on and replace paper $1 bills entirely, it could save the country between $500 and $700 million each year in printing costs.
Plus, if things stay on track, 2012 will see the release of the Chester A. Arthur dollar coin -- marking the first time that long non-commemorated president's face has ever appeared on any nation's currency. And who are we to deprive him of that?
That's an impressive list of stolen goods and livestock, colonel. It must be incomplete, though. Surely those rascally Rebs ransacked every home that they encountered and made off with the silverware, furniture, any personal items of value and then torched the house when their looting was complete.
Dig deeper. I'm sure that you can find some revisionist history to support your equivalency efforts.
Meaningless. The French welcomed the Nazi's in WWII. By your definition, the Nazi's were liberators.
I don't know about you, but part of my family was in Sherman's path
The majority of my family was from Goldsboro, NC. Look it up.
Thank you! Great post...
Why do you think Lee went into PA if not to live on stolen Yankee private property?
Sherman was indeed rougher on SC, history says that the march was much less harsh once the army entered North Carolina. There was a lot more hostility against South Carolina than there was against North Carolina or Georgia. Given that it was South Carolina that started the secession madness, I can say I understand the hostile sentiment. A lot of Southerners of the time didn’t like SC very much either.
Very fortunate for them. That meant that they were not in the path of Gatewood's Confederate Partisan Rangers.
Right, because you say so. Go ahead give us a quote on that.
Lee's objective was military. General Lee's objective was to induce the Union Army to disperse across a broad front along the Mason-Dixon line, and then, by maneuver, draw it to a point far from its base of supply where it could be attacked and beaten in detail.
You keep trying to establish some pathetic moral equivalency for your Uncle Billy, but it ain't gonna work, pal.
Lee only took items to sustain an army in the field. Look at it as a down payment for the grand larceny the yankees inflicted on the South.
Gatewood was a boy scout compared to your murderous hero's from the north.
You've been stretching the truth again, colonel.
Gatewood wasn't a Partisan Ranger. Mosby was a Partisan Ranger. Ashby was a Partisan Ranger. Gatewood wasn't any part of the Confederate Army at all and actually refused to take any orders from Confederate officers. Hell, he didn't start operating his gang until August 1864!
He was nothing but an outlaw just like the union sympathizing Long/Roberts gang from that same area.
Then he really messed that plan up. How do you explain Pickett's Charge? It seems only you and General Longstreet believed that fable.
Here's a more accurate description of the raid from somebody as close to the top as possible, General Lee himself in his post campaign report:
"It had not been intended to deliver a general battle so far from our base unless attacked."
Why did he travel then if not to fight an engagement unless under narrow and favorable circumstances? Maybe Lee wanted his boys to see a little more of the world, just a tourist excursion and educational expedition.
Lee lost his head at Gettysburg but the #1 mission of the raid was taking Yankee supplies, why else would he have sent Ewell so far away from the rest of the army? That does not sound like the move of a general who has fighting, not foraging, on the top of the list.
Long and Roberts were free lancers, Gatewood got his start under Southern hero and noble Confederate warrior Champ Ferguson who very definitely in rebel employ. The rebs let the criminal element loose on the South with their partisan ranger act. It’s rather striking the way y’all try to connect every criminal act with 100 of miles of Sherman to the general himself, but you ignore the mayhem loosed upon Dixie by the actions of that glorified criminal gang of slave traders, the Confederate “legislature”.
I’ll try to find you the quote from the South Georgia citizen who told Union soldiers that he hoped the Yankees would make a real mess of the home of secession. A lot of Southerners, even some who later joined the reb cause like Lee, thought that SC was stupid and reckless to the point of madness.
LOL
Revisionism. Doesn't deserve a reply.
So was Gatewood.
BTW, are you as equally disgusted by Long/Robert's murderous activities as you are Gatewood's or are Long/Robert's murder and plundering righteous because they were union scum like your Uncle Billy?
Gatewood got his start under Southern hero and noble Confederate warrior Champ Ferguson
It's 'claimed' that he rode with Ferguson for about a year. I could find no proof. Gatewood may have made it up.
every criminal act with 100 of miles of Sherman to the general himself
And why shouldn't Shermy get the blame? Wasn't he the 'total war' general? Wasn't it he who said that he would 'make the South howl'?
but you ignore the mayhem loosed upon Dixie by the actions of that glorified criminal gang of slave traders, the Confederate “legislature”.
I'll take Southern legislaturers over yankee tyrannists any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
BTW, what yankee state are you from? You're a transplant, right?
Atrocities are evil no matter which side does it. I'm not sure I'd call Sherman scum without calling people like General Wheeler scum also. Like I pointed out above, Sherman's reaction to the rape report and Wheeler's cavalier attitude to an obviously likely nearby murder in progress both fall short of what we would like to see out of our military. But while I wouldn't disagree with the idea that sometimes leaders like Sherman and Wheeler could have done a better job in the heat of warfare, I'm not sure that makes them scum.
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