Posted on 06/18/2015 8:37:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Ben Domenech wonders how early America’s most famous self-made man, who fought by Washington’s side in the revolution, who co-wrote the Federalist Papers, who constructed the country’s financial system, and who was decades ahead of his time in opposing the slave trade ended up on the currency chopping block.
Our terrible ruling class can’t even resist farking up our money.
Back in 2009, during the height of the Tea Party, there were crotchety old Americans who warned in dark tones about the dangers of this president. He was a socialist, they said, and feckless to boot. He hated the American Founding and the men who built the foundations of this country. He would lead us into war and ruin and despair, and he would tear down the monuments to our heroes along the way. He was anti-American through and through, in ways that us youngsters did not understand. When they said this, I would disagree as politely as possible. The president is wrong about policy, wrong about direction, I said at the time, but he is not a socialist, not someone who hates America. He may have the wrong ideas, but his heart was still in the right place, or close to it.
Is it possible they were right, and I was wrong?
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew says it’s no slight against Hamilton, just a quirk of scheduling: The $10 was due for a redesign and the feds want a woman on the currency by 2020 to celebrate the centenary of women’s suffrage. But of course it’s a slight. No one thinks Washington would be booted from the $1 or Lincoln from the $5 if those bills were next for a design overhaul. As for why Hamilton instead of Jackson, the great persecutor of Native Americans and a man effectively disowned by his party (a fan of decentralization with a southern base is basically the opposite of the modern Democratic Party), Lew says it’s because the bills need to be redesigned sequentially for some reason. Presumably Jackson will be cashiered in due time too, but not by 2020.
Who’s replacing Hamilton? Lew won’t say yet:
Lew said Obama administration officials are seeking advice nationwide — including people who “aren’t comfortable using a hashtag as well as people who are comfortable using a hashtag.”
“We are going to be open to many ideas as we go forward consistent with theme of democracy,” Lew said. “Our thinking is to select a woman who has played a major role in our history who represents the theme of democracy.”
The bills with Hamilton in it, which were first introduced in 1929, will continue to be used for as long as those bill last, Lew said.
Presumably it’ll be Harriet Tubman, the name most often mentioned as a potential replacement for Jackson. Hard to believe the feds, having resolved to remove one of the most influential Founders from the sawbuck in favor of a woman, would double down on an all-white currency by choosing a white woman over a black one. Besides, Tubman is better known to most Americans, I’d bet, than leaders of the suffrage movement like Alice Paul, Susan B. Anthony, or Elizabeth Cady Stanton. One of the arguments made on Twitter last night for why Hamilton ended up being sent into currency retirement is that many of us simply don’t know who he is, his amazing achievements notwithstanding. He’s expendable culturally in a way that American presidents like Washington, Lincoln, and even Jackson simply aren’t. It would be odd if the woman who replaced him is much more obscure than he is, even granting that women had grossly fewer opportunities than men like Hamilton did to make a major mark on American politics until recently. Tubman made hers despite everything that was stacked against her. Eleanor Roosevelt did too, although it would be beyond strange to find FDR’s First Lady on the currency when FDR himself, arguably the most consequential president of the last hundred years, isn’t.
But I digress. Jack Lew’s rationalizations aside, why’d they bump Hamilton instead of Jackson? One theory being kicked around last night was that a Democratic administration wouldn’t bump a former Democratic president from the currency, but like I said above, that doesn’t wash. There are few modern Dems who view the term “Jacksonian” as a compliment. Another possibility, as noted, is that Hamilton’s less well known to the public than Jackson is, which may be true but isn’t so true that it would explain a strong preference for bumping the former instead of the latter. Washington and Lincoln are untouchable American icons; Jackson once had an iconic status, but time and greater public awareness of his political sins has eroded his cultural currency. His own accomplishments don’t rival Hamilton’s. He should have been the first to go and would have gone with less objection from people who know their history. Maybe Hamilton was picked for retirement precisely because the administration knew that replacing him would be more likely to provoke a public outcry, especially among GOPers who think greater respect for the Founders and their constitutional scheme are key to restoring American greatness. The more Republicans grumble about Hamilton being tossed, the easier it is to frame their complaints as opposition to having a woman on the currency, a fine little flourish for the “war on women” crapola to come this year and next. Exit question: Which GOP candidate will be the first to call for reinstating Hamilton?
My wife teaches high school in a suburb of Washington D.C. and she tells me that the students have no idea even who Franklin Roosevelt was, much less any of the founding fathers. On the other hand, they are bombarded with lessons about Rosa Parks, gay rights and etc.
Margaret Sanger?
I am not one of those Freepers.
Alexander Hamilton’s idea of what a federal government should be to what it is today, is what a Husky sled dog in John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is to what it eventually metastasized into at the end of the movie.
Hamilton would be disgusted and appalled at what our fiscal polices have become.
The fact that he may have expressed admiration for monarchy at some point, or had funny ideas about other trappings of government makes not a bit of difference. He wasn’t the person to enact those changes, and he was in a government where people were free to speak their minds for good or evil.
What is important is that he was in charge of our embryonic fiscal policy at a time when we needed someone smart, talented and energetic to steer it. He was the one to do it, and he did.
We should be ashamed for letting it become what it has.
“Just refuse to use the $10. Seen any Susan B Anthony dollar coins lately?”
Hard to do for the budget stressed.
Maybe better idea is to tear the bill up (I’d say ten strips) and tape it back together.
Maybe they should leave well enough alone and come up with a three dollar bill with Caitlyn Jenner’s face on it.
As time in my teaching career passed, I found it harder and then impossible to find texts that covered the first half of the 20th century adequately. It takes time to cover the Great Depression and the New Deal and the newer texts just don’t do them justice. Besides, the joy of making the kids learn about the “alphabet-soup” agencies and outfits like the Southen Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) made it a good lesson to teach. I found my lesson on the TVA (”a giant dam project, that hired a lot of dam workers, that used a lot of dam-building materials, that resulted in a lot of cheap dam electricity, etc., etc.) was a favorite with my students.
World War II in my latest text had one five-page lesson on the rise of Hitler, Mussolini, Japan, invasion of Poland, France, Battle of Britain, and Pearl Harbor—really? As much space was devoted to the “home front” which was really about women in the factories, the plight of black workers, Mexicans being deported, and of course, the detention of the Japanese-Americans. No mention of the fate of the Marines at Wake. Guadalcanal might have gotten a sentence, Midway, a couple.
Part of this is, I know, is the passage of time. Those who lived through those times are leaving us—but the key events that shaped the 20th century, as well as our own times deserve space, time and thought—even on the part of 8th graders.
In my view, the key events that shaped the 20th Century, and even our world today occurred in the First World War. One of my wife’s colleagues asked her to recommend a book about WWI, and she in turn asked me. I suggested “The Guns of August”, a rather obvious place to begin, and mentioned “Goodby to All That” and “All Quite on the Western Front”. Barbara Tuchman’s book turned out to be a revelation.
Somebody over at Foxnews.com is suggesting Bo Derek. Nice.
I agree. World War I is still biting us in the butt today. Virtually all,of the Middle East problems date from then, the rise of the USSR and communism, the destruction of a whole European generation, the list of consequences can go on and on.
Another good World War I read is August 1914 by Solzhenitsyn.
The Constitution allows states to directly tax incomes but not the federal government (At least the Constitution prior to the 16th amendment) yet income taxes did not come into widespread use until the federal income tax was put in place.
And it was Progressive Republicans that pushed for the income tax.
Alice Paul Biography Women's Rights Activist (1885–1977)
Publisher, Civil Rights Activist, Editor, Women's Rights Activist, Journalist (1820–1906)
Women's Rights Activist (1815–1902)
The two I have never heard of are Alice Paul and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Dear m kehoe,
CHEESE N RICE!!!!
You obviously do NOT have the quarter to buy the clue, to understand who that Molly Pitcher that I referenced is, do you?!?!?
Try this for size:
http://www.revolutionary-war.net/molly-pitcher.html
/S
Refuse to accept the new $10 as change. Demand 2 $5 bills instead. It’ll die a swift death, just like the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin did
Susan B. Anthony was pro-life. Too controversial.
Of course I know who Molly Pitcher is, that's why I seconded your nomination.
I also have a FRiend named "Molly Pitcher."
CHEESE N RICE!!!
5.56mm
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