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?
Listen?! Pokie’s Pavlovian response has him galloping around the room...;-)
Didn't it make sense to try Davis publicly, and then give him a proper public hanging for treason, since it was constitutionally illegal to secede?
I'll start a Confederate thread and watch you and the rest of the coven bubble up.
Looks like a pot meet kettle moment, punkrr.
It sure seems like a foreign country from the one I grew up in.
Secession is STILL legal, no amendments were made to the USC regarding secession post war . Ever wonder why?
If it was really a graduate seminar, we would have long since finished the semester. Instead, we all keep showing up in the classroom, hooked on the arguing, on the verbal parry and thrust. That it's about history at it's base (as opposed to some really dumb things to argue about I've seen on the internet) is just a bonus.
Let's all admit the truth. We do this because it's fun.
You can't be THAT dumb!
Or could you.....
I guess you have fun in strange ways. I'll stop when you guys stop.
I think I have come to the conclusion that there are two schools of thought regarding republics, there seems no way to change anyone's mind, also. This small difference causes aggression. What seems logical to one side seems unthinkable to the other side. It is like abortion issue, only worse.
Not so fast there, CVA!!
What about Texas-v-White!!!!
/sarc/sarc
Well said. It's come down to: When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
or
secession, are you fer it or agin it! (the right to secede, that is)
Yea yea yea. We would all be gobsmacked if you were to do something more than just run your mouth...
See ya there, Bolshoi.
That's because you consider yourself a native of a country that never existed.
There is more than a lot of truth in what you say. Great insight.
I learned a lot about the war and the fundamental issues involved from these threads. I now have a bookcase of books on the period and thousands of old newspaper articles. I guess I could always teach a history course on the war at one of the local colleges. I think I could present the arguments from both sides fairly having been exposed to them here numerous times. I wouldn’t be as partisan as I am here. I find it more fun on these threads to argue from the Southern point of view. I also think the South was right on a lot of things, but I’d try to keep my opinions out of the course and expose the students to both sides. Let them make up their own minds.
I taught various junior level engineering courses when I was in grad school. The faculty wanted me to go into teaching, but I found that the second time I taught a course, it was not nearly as interesting as the first time through. So I went into research in private industry.
Hate and intolerance, the twin peaks of Neo Yankee statism.
Damn that 14th Amendment and the rule of law anyway. </sarcasm>
Didn't it make sense to try Davis publicly, and then give him a proper public hanging for treason, since it was constitutionally illegal to secede?
That would have been my preference. But I can see the wisdom of the mercy that Chief Justice Chase showed Davis when he said that any trial and punishment would have violated his 5th Amendment protections. Saved him from martyrdom, which would have been completely undeserved given the blood on his hands. Ironic, once you think about it. Someone with Davis' contempt for his own constitution being saved from prison or the gallows by...the U.S. Constitution.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.