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?
Like I said, lady, I’m not within a thousand miles of you. But you don’t get to tell me where I can and can’t post on a public forum. If you don’t like it, leave.
No one is stopping you from leaving.
It figures that you would find that picture amusing.
Total war, right bubba!
Does your dog hide under the bed when you log on?
You heard the lady, boys. Stay away from her.
That's total war? No wonder y'all lost.
Or what? You’ll threaten to secede again?
You’re welcome to leave any time as well....boy.
That's right clownboy. It turns out there's about fifteen volumes of Congressional testimony regarding southern Klan activity in the 1870-1872 period alone, including several volumes on South Carolina alone. I'm gonna make Chesterfield County circa 1871 a special research project just for you and little miss priss.
Count on it.
The mod didn't make it manditory that we rip each other's guts out. I say give the lady a rest. She's new to these WBTS threads.
mstar, if you love history as much as I gather that you do, you can learn a lot from these threads. They are kind of like a graduate seminar on the war. Just ignore the juvenile posters and don't let them get to you.
Youre welcome to leave any time as well....boy.--punkrr
That's it, boys! I'll be your huckleberry...
Good for you! Now, why don't you tell us where you're from and we'll reciprocate the deed.
Ooh, now I’m afraid. Cow is channeling Val Kilmer.
War is rough on civilians. But you are mistaken if you don’t think Confederates were guilty of the same excess. I know of a nice story of a Confederate colonel (no doubt a Southern gentlemen) attempting to choke an elderly citizen of McDonald, Tennessee to death over a horse. The responsibility of loosing this mayhem on the nation rests with the geniuses who thought it a great idea to tear the nation apart so they could take their human property into the territories.
Is that General Oliver Howard? A great American and a great Republican who showed he cared more for the education of poor Southerners than most secessionists by his support for the establishment of Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate Tennessee.
As far as starving Southerners is concerned, most Southern starvation during the war occurred because the plantation crowd chose to have their slaves produce money crops rather than grow food to feed the families of the despised mudsills who were doing their fighting.
You and punkrr are just the cutest little things!
Sorry, Cow. I’m not interested.
Unconvincingly ;-)
Then there wouldn't be anybody to talk to (or to talk back).
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