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?
PS it wasn't non-sequitur although he agrees with every word of it.
What is a Confederacy?
By a Confederacy we mean a union of sovereign states which of their own free will and in virtue of their sovereignty come together and create a collective unit, ceding to that unit as much of their own sovereign rights as will render the existence of the union possible and will guarantee it. But the theoretical formula is not wholly put into practice by any confederacy that exists today. And least of all by the American Union, where it is impossible to speak of original sovereignty in regard to the majority of the states. Many of them were not included in the federal complex until long after it had been established. The states that make up the American Union are mostly in the nature of territories, more or less, formed for technical administrative purposes, their boundaries having in many cases been fixed in the mapping office. Originally these states did not and could not possess sovereign rights of their own. Because it was the Union that created most of the so-called states. Therefore the sovereign rights, often very comprehensive, which were left, or rather granted, to the various territories correspond not only to the whole character of the Confederation but also to its vast space, which is equivalent to the size of a Continent. Consequently, in speaking of the United States of America one must not consider them as sovereign states but as enjoying rights or, better perhaps, autarchic powers, granted to them and guaranteed by the Constitution.
By all means consider this a teachable moment. I am all "ears".
What cha' going to do there, YELLOW BELLIED boy ?
The South WAS A Confederacy of states.
You nitwits on the internet AREN’T and NEVER will be.
Not a single one of you has the balls to actually act on the crap you spew on here in terms of seceding or any of that other garbage.
And I fully expect that in 5 years or 10 years or however many years it takes, you’ll still be on FR (or whatever forum exists at the time) still whining the same whines, still posting the same crap, still playing this stupid game. And the United States will still contain the same 50 states.
Mike, do you know who wrote that? Do you?
I will make this easy for you, was it:
Great guys all...
Eat your Wheaties.
We all have enough respect to read each others posts. The one thing that the Lincoln Coven does do well is actually read our posts, I'll give them that. I return the favor too. I read every one of their insipid posts. So if you want to play the game you have to READ! I know its hard, just try...
All of which are in the Coven’s shrine of honor....
Talk about a non-sequitur!
Clearly you don't understand the rules. Anyone who disagrees with whatever tenet of belief you choose is whatever negative epithet can be summoned. For instance, on the Religion Boards, and can be a papist, a heretic, a satanist and an atheist all at the same time. Similarly, anyone who disagrees with a state's unilateral right to simply up and declare itself no longer part of the United States is simultaneously a communist, a fascist, a thug, a Nazi, an imperialist, a Democrat, a Black Republican, a racist, and whatever else they can think of. Never mind that to most people many of those terms are mutually exclusive. If they're considered negatives and the Lost Causers can spell it, you're it.
answer my question. Do you think I really give a crap?
Idiot, the Coven does not want you. Send back your Lincoln Doll but please sanitize it first..
More idle threats - more laughter for me.
And punted all of them.
All true. But he did send the army after the Mormons.
So if the Cotton States had seceded in order to keep more than one wife, Buchanan would have been all over them.
... the secessionists, that is, not their wives ...
If you say so. Rational people would disagree with you on four of them.
Of course if you want to take Adolph Hitler's opinion on the U.S. and confederacies then go right ahead. Given the ways that Hitler's Germany and Davis' confederacy were alike, I can understand your attraction.
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