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 a lot of lovers of a free republic to come, we are looking for that Ft. Sumter moment. That day may never come, that sentiment must surely comfort you. The Federal boot licking sycophant gets upset when somebody talks about leaving the ranch of statism.
Who cares, I think it is hilarious!!
It must have been hard to resist the natural urge to arrest and silence them.
Not at all. By their slithering and their foul temper I knew that they were rebel sympathizers still pissed about losing the rebellion and I figured that must be punishment enough.
You are easily amused.
He led the Confederate Army into battle against your beloved union and his intent was to defeat them.
He was against secession.
But yet he seceded.....
Keep living the lie, dufus. It's all you got.
Liar.
Why? It was their fort.
Liar.
None was desired by the rebel side.
Liar.
Absolute bullsh*t.
Yes you are.
You mean, no grasp of yankee revisionist history.
Your bigotry is duly noted.
And so is yours, dufus.
No I mean those not clinging to Lost Cause mythology.
Truth hurts. There was no peace envoy, only messengers delivering the rebel ultimatum. Fort Sumter was the property of the federal government and not the state of South Carolina. And peace did not suit the rebel plans. And your claims to the contrary are the true bullsh*t in all of this.
You guys/liberals are famous for taking something out of context and then trying to twist it into your sick agendas.
Somewhere in the world, right now, there is a person in bondage. A slave. How many people are you willing to kill to free this person?
The confederacy wasn't destroyed? Who knew? Oh wait, now you can give me the 'it lives in the hearts of true Southern patriots' or some such nonsense.
Well he sure screwed that up then, didn't he?
But yet he seceded.....
He rebelled. Unsuccessfully as it turns out.
So, you're an obama socialist?
First of all, I worship no man. People worship is what you stinking yankees do.
Second, Buchanan was a stinking yankee, just like you. I wasn't defending him. I objected to him being labeled as the worst president in history when there are much better candidates for that title, such as disHonest Abe, the drunkard Grant, your boy obama, etc.
Something that you personally know a lot about.
(By the way, just between me and you, are 'they' still trying to pry and dig into your personal info? )
You mean, clinging to northron revisionism and denial.
YOUR revisionism, denial and STINKIN YANKEE MYTHOLOGY is the TRUE bullcrap in ALL of this.
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