Traditionally we had either Liberty, or an male Indian on our coins. Ideally we would go back to that with Liberty on the penny, dime, half dollar. The Indian head would be on the nickel, quarter and dollar.
Ues these as templates:
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?
1922 was the last time a decent dollar coin was minted. And possibly the worst...tough choice but the SBA is near the top clunker.
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...”
Yes, it is very important to name the first spouses. It is only fair.
Idiocy rules the day.
Lincoln is the one that should be censured for starting the War of Northern Aggression.
Buchanan's mantra was "I acknowledge no master but the law." He believed that secession was illegal but he also believed that starting a war to stop secession was also illegal, and, IMO, immoral, because a union forced at gunpoint is no union at all.
The really best way is to GIVE them away.
Ack! Gaudiest coin design ever!
“...That’s the consensus of historians, anyway, who have traditionally censured Buchanan...”
Of course historians never get to much of a consensus on any subject.
Yeah, everyone's going to spend a few hundred dollars per coin to get a half ounce of gold just to learn the names of the first ladies.
In the New Testament, when the Pharisees and Herodians ask Jesus about paying taxes to Caesar, that is, to the Roman emperor, he asks to be shown a denarius and then asks "Whose image and inscription is this?" and they have to reply, "Caesar's" (probably meaning either Tiberius, the reigning emperor, or his predecessor Augustus).
Since they got rid of the Lincoln memorial on the reverse of the penny and replaced it with an imitation of a state highway marker, now is the time to use the back of the penny to commemorate all of the counties. If they did 2 a week it wouldn't take that many years. It's the logical next step after doing the states on the back of the quarter.
As I’ve said before, we cannot get rid of the $1 bill. What are we going to tip strippers with?
Once the insanity was loose and the rebs attacked, Lincoln had no choice but a resort to armed force.
Buchanan gets a bum rap for following the Constitution while Lincoln gets plaudits for ognoring it.
There have been 44 US presidents, more or less.
The US mint should have printed all of them first, then produced sets in typical coin cardboard containers displaying all 44, for $60, providing $16 for shipping and handling. Or $15, if they included one coin that was reversed, to show the common reverse the coins share.
Then, as an added bonus, they could sell $50 rolls of coins of a particular president, and for the real collectors, a *silver* set of presidential $20 coins (silver is about $18.50/ounce right now), for about $900.
A silver $20 coin would have to be much more artistic, however, but with a classical look. The avant garde look they’ve been trying on coins recently is pretty lame.
Traditionally we had either Liberty, or an male Indian on our coins. Ideally we would go back to that with Liberty on the penny, dime, half dollar. The Indian head would be on the nickel, quarter and dollar.
Ues these as templates:
I don’t like the avant garde look either. to me it’s an offense against the dignity of the government. Maybe it’s a symptom of the same mindset that also cheapens the monetary value of the currency!
IMHO the reason no one wants $1 coins is the bulk. I can carry 20 $1 bills in my pocket and never notice the difference.
If I’ve got 20 $1 coins in my pocket, I’m leaning sideways. Although if I put them in my other pocket, it would balance out my carry piece.
Maybe that’s the solution. Let everyone carry and they can use the right number of coins to balance out the load.
There is an answer to your question. Think about where you drop coins in machines. I will say no more.
“Buchanan was not the worst president, but he probably is in the top 20. I think that distinctive title should go to Wilson. But Obama, before his term is over, is going to wrest the title away, I think.
For long term damage I think Wilson is worst but Buchanan is close. Had he reacted like Andrew Jackson did in the Nullification Crisis I do not think we would have ever reached a Civil War.”
I don’t agree at all. Buchanan was not a stellar President but he was not close to the worst. He has frequently been pilloried by leftists who say that, if only he had taken some unspecified action, the Civil War could have been averted.
You mention Jackson and the Nullification Crisis. Different time. Jackson was responding to a tariff and although he blustered and threatened force, a tariff (tax) is quintessentially easy to compromise. It was reduced, with an assist from Henry Clay, and SC rescinded its nullification ordinance. The Crisis was resolved, for the time being.
Buchanan, a lame duck President, was responding to a new nullification crisis, which involved a matter not capable of compromise—the Election of a new President, Abraham Lincoln. Also, the times were different. The United States Army in 1860 numbered only 16,000 troops and it was spread from Maine to California. On the other hand, the Southern militia had grown much better organized, spurred by the talk of secession, Bleeding Kansas, and John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. These militia units became the foundation of the Confederate Armies of Tennessee and Northern Virginia, which were very formidable forces.
So Buchanan confronted a much different crisis and a much different South. Moreover, had he engaged in sabre rattling in 1859-60 like Jackson, he risked a huge portion of his regular army, especially the officer corps which was top heavy with Southerners, who would have (and in fact later did) resigned rather than obey an order to invade the south.
Buchanan may not have been a great President, but he faced many crises including Dred Scott, Bleeding Kansas, Harper’s Ferry and the 1860 election. In my estimation, he was better than Grant, Wilson, Clinton, Carter, Obama, LBJ or FDR, to name a few. It is true that he was unable to avert the Civil War, but neither could Lincoln. Buchanan was a Constitutionalist, who believed the essence of governance was restraint. This is probably why liberals revile him.
I refuse to take the liberal bait on Buchanan, becasue it is highly simplistic to say any politician could have averted the Civil War. You have to look at the entire historical context. The seed of secession was planted at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when the Convention deferred the issue of slavery in order to form a Union. It had been germinating for 80 years. The fact that it sprouted on James Buchanan’s watch is not even mostly his fault.
“I refuse to take the liberal bait on Buchanan, becasue it is highly simplistic to say any politician could have averted the Civil War.”
Jefferson Davis might have desisted from attacking Fort Sumter. His own Secretary of State, Robert Toombs of Georgia, told him in plain English it would start the greatest civil war the world had ever seen, but Davis apparently thought he knew better.
It is disastrous decisions such as the Fort Sumter attack that lead me to think that one of the defects in our system of government is the unitary executive, and the Swiss plural executive may be superior. A unitary executive is certainly best if you know it will be George Washington or Ronald Reagan, but more often you get Jefferson Davis, Jimmy Carter, or Barack Obama.
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