Want to try that one again??
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?
Are they anything like the West Virginia counties that had voted to secede from the US, did not vote to be part of West Virginia, but were put in it anyway by the North and the faux Virginia government? Not exactly. In other cases (NC, TN, AL, FL) it was the constitutional action of the whole state; in the case of West Virginia it was the unconstitutional action of a piece of a state which had no authority over dissenting counties.
Wikipedia has interesting maps of the West Virginia counties that voted for Virginia's secession from the US and those that apparently boycotted the statehood referendum. See the following links to West Virginia maps [Scroll down for the two Wikipedia maps]. Here is another version of the map of counties voting for secession from the US map [Slightly more detailed WV secession vote map] and some discussion of the vote [West Virginia, The Other History].
Dealing with you and Idabilly has given me a lot of experience observing losers and how they act and react, yes.
(By the way, just between me and you, are 'they' still trying to pry and dig into your personal info? )
I don't know. Are you? I have no idea what kind of freepmails fly between all y'all.
No, Southron revisionism and denial. Lost Cause mythology. What part of that is confusing you?
Hardly. It's definitely the Lost Cause fairy tales that resemble the bovine scat.
Well if you want to draw the comparison then perhaps its valid. But if part of West Virginia was reluctantly incorporated into the Union then there is no denial that whole sections of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama were reluctantly incorporated into the confederacy. So if you want to decry the fate of the Virginia counties then will be as vocal in condemning the confederacy for forcing whole sections of their territory into their 'country' against their will?
As I said above: "In other cases (NC, TN, AL, FL) it was the constitutional action of the whole state; in the case of West Virginia it was the unconstitutional action of a piece of a state which had no authority over dissenting counties."
But I forget. You don't understand the Constitution.
Excellent. Your swattie emulation is almost perfect. Do you jump up & down while you mash that out on your keyboard?
Actually I do, apparently better than most Lost Causers.
In the first place, your claim of a 'constitutional action of the whole state' is wrong. The Southern acts of secession were not legal, as the Supreme Court ruled in 1869.
And there was nothing illegal or unconstitutional about the creation of West Virginia. A single state may split itself into two or more states with the approval of Congress and the state legislature. The partition was approved by a body calling itself the loyal Virginia legislature and which was recognized by Congress as the only legitimate Virginia legislature sitting. Congress later approved their actions, and the Supreme Court recognized the legality of the split when they heard the case of Virginia v. West Virginia following the rebellion. The case which, by the way, said West Virginia could keep the counties in question.
I can think of one.
This is what the Beltway does to people. It insulates people from real life and buries them in this fantasy land where it's somehow important to know the freakin' "presidential spouses."
speaking of revisionism, your thinking that Obama is in any way my “boy” just shows how delusional you traitors are....
Are you still stuck on that lame ass argument?
I guess once stuck on stupid, always stuck on stupid.
One of the many, many problems with you stinkin yankees is that you don’t know the difference between worship and respect.
That’s because you’re a bunch of Godless heathens and the reason why so many of you fell for obama’s snake oil.
BTW, how long has your lineage been in the US? Did you swim the Rio Grande or steel a boat and float across?
ahem...Bedford Forrest was not just a Tennessean...though by birth...not far from where i type.. but was at that pointing spending most of his time at his plantations at Friar’s Point in my homestate...the Magnolia one....
but he did enlist in Memphis first as a private...indeed
just saying...
It's an honest guess based on your liberal leanings, boy.
liberal leanings?
Boy? LOL - you’re the one worshiping democrats son.
The Confederates believed in one group working to support a non productive favored class. Sounds like Obama socialism to me. I don’t like godless socialism so I don’t like the Confederate States of America.
Yes. I know Forrest had Mississippi roots as well and not just those associated with some of his magnificent victories.
I would be the last one the sell the Magnolia state short, given my nom de guerre ;)
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