Free Republic

In many of our history books today, Christopher Columbus did not discover America, instead he was a ruthless white European marauder who brutalized peaceful indigenous people and helped spread disease among their midst. This type of historical revisionism was on full display this week when one of our greatest Presidents and military heroes, Andrew Jackson, was removed from the front of the $20 bill. Eventually, he will be featured on the back of the bill, while the image of Harriet Tubman, an African American slave who escaped and led hundreds of other slaves to freedom, will adorn the front. These...

There are some knee-jerk reactions to the seemingly "political correctness run amok" move to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, replacing President Andrew Jackson. But the replacing of the slave-owning founder of the Democratic Party with a gun-toting black Republican may spark a political debate worth having and unearth historical truths worth learning. As PJ Media described the announcement: The first woman on United States bank notes will be the famous abolitionist and Republican Harriet Tubman, Politico reported Wednesday. She will give the boot to the nation's sixth president and a major figure in the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson,...

Harriet Tubman is a good choice to replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill. Jackson, the first Democratic president, is exactly the sort of overheated, pompous populist that has tended to screw up the American political system. His demotion to the back of the bill is long overdue. But before we act to raise Tubman’s stature to the point that she is memorialized on commonly used currency, it behooves Americans to understand her role in our common history. It’s a lot more interesting than the description of her as an “Underground Railroad conductor” that appears in my...

Politico reports that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is set to announce that Alexander Hamilton will get a reprieve and remain on the $10 bill, while Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the face of the $20, and Treasury will make other changes including “putting leaders of the women’s suffrage movement on the back of the $10 bill, and incorporating civil-rights era leaders and other important moments in American history into the $5 bill” while relocating Jackson to less desirable real estate (his own Trail of Tears, one might say) on the back of the $20. There are a few...

The Revolutionary contributions of Andrew Jackson, who, today, was kicked off the $20 bill: Jackson and his two older brothers enlisted in the Revolutionary Army as soon as war broke out. Andrew was 12 or 13. Scots Irish. Couldn't miss out on a war for his country with that breeding. The Brothers Jackson fought in the bloodiest battles of the Carolinas, the most ruthless theatre of the entire war. Oldest brother died in the Battle of Stono Ferry. Andrew & Robert were taken prisoner, Andrew’s brother dying shortly thereafter of smallpox. Jackson was ordered into valet service of a Brit...

After a relentless campaign by conservatives, progressives, and Broadway musicals to keep Founding Father Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, it appears the Treasury Department will keep Hamilton. According to POLITICO, they will instead replace President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman. It’s a shame that progressives (and even conservatives) have been quick to ditch Jackson. While it’s true that Jackson is often remembered for his alleged reputation for violence, the Trail of Tears, or perhaps even the 1959 Johnny Horton song, “Battle of New Orleans.”—his true legacy is much more important to America...

Presenting an artist's impression of what your new $20 bill will soon look like. It's official.Moments ago Politico reported that the U.S. Treasury will announce that it plans to replace former President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman, the sources said. There will also be changes to the $5 bill to depict civil rights era leaders.Not every dead president is being scraped however: treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Wednesday will announce a decision to keep Alexander Hamilton on the front of the $10 bill and put leaders of the movement to give women the right to vote...

Harriet Tubman is going to replace former President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, according to a report. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is expected to make the announcement on Wednesday, according to Politico. Sources told the site that he has also decided to keep Alexander Hamilton on the front of the $10 bill.

After much speculation on the possible replacement of Alexander Hamilton’s portrait on the $10 bill, it appears the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury will stay put on the heavily-circulated note. While the high-profile support voiced by the cast and creator of the popular Broadway musical, Hamilton, could not have hurt the founding father’s case to remain on the 10, it seems current Treasury Secretary Jack Lew counts himself among Hamilton’s admirers and was reluctant to replace him from the beginning. This doesn’t mean things will stay as they are. CNN notes that a “mural-style depiction of the women’s suffrage...

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is expected to announce this week that Alexander Hamilton's face will remain on the front of the $10 bill and a woman will replace Andrew Jackson on the face of the $20 bill, a senior government source told CNN on Saturday. Lew announced last summer that he was considering redesigning the $10 bill to include the portrait of a woman. The decision to make the historic change at the expense of Hamilton drew angry rebukes from fans of the former Treasury Secretary. The pro-Hamilton movement gained steam after the smash success of the hip-hop Broadway musical...

Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, Jeffersonian, or Jacksonian?

It is Jacksonians who, as I wrote in Special Providence back in 2001, see the Second Amendment as the foundation of and security for American freedom. It is Jacksonians who most resent illegal immigration, don’t want to subsidize the urban poor, support aggressive policing and long prison sentences for violent offenders, and who are the slowest to “evolve” on issues like gay marriage and transgender rights.

The biggest story in America today is the roaring return of Andrew Jackson's spirit into the political debate. Not since he fought with Nicholas Biddle over the future of the Bank of the United States has Andrew Jackson been this controversial or this central in American political life. Jacksonian populism, the sense of honor-driven egalitarianism and fiery nationalism that drove American politics for many years, has never been hated and reviled as often as it is today, and many American academics and intellectuals (to say nothing of Hollywood icons) are close to demanding that Jacksonian sentiment be redefined as a...

Every once in a while a scholar will write an absolutely pathbreaking article . . . then disappear. No books. No other articles. Sometimes they fail to get tenure, sometimes it's a health problem, sometimes they change research direction. One of the most fascinating people I have come across is a historian named Lynn Marshall, who in 1967 wrote what I thought was one of the most profound articles ever---in the prestigious American Historical Review. He briefly taught at my school, the U. of California, Santa Barbara and word was (unverified) that he failed to get tenure. Marshall produced no...

After the Paris attack, conventional wisdom held that Republican voters would finally turn away from political outsiders and reward candidates representing sobriety and experience. No one stopped to consider that, actually, voters might be drawn to the guy who memorably said of ISIS that he would "bomb the ---- out of them." Not only has Donald Trump not been hurt by Paris, he has bumped up in the aftermath (Ben Carson, on the other hand, has indeed dropped). The cliche about Trump is that he's defying the laws of political gravity. If Trump is cutting against the contemporary political grain...

Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson are history in Connecticut. Under pressure from the (NAACP) the state (Democrat Party) will scrub the names of the two presidents from its annual fundraising dinner because of their ties to slavery.

In the interview, she says, "I don't know why they picked the $10... I want a woman on the bill. It might be easier to change the 20 than it is to change the 10." She added that the suggestion to have a woman share a bill, "sounds pretty second-class to me" and emphasized, "a woman should have her own bill." The U.S. Treasury's current plan to put a woman on the $10 bill in 2020 includes keeping Alexander Hamilton on the banknote in some form.

A woman will be on the new $10 bill, bumping Alexander Hamilton aside. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew says he will choose the woman by year's end, based on "input from the public." In one survey of the "public," the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation, Wilma Mankiller, placed fourth. I understand the wish to counter sexism prevalent in early America, but "Mankiller?" The name alone probably reveals something about the attitude of some of those voters. Fortunately, more voted for Harriet Tubman. Tubman escaped slavery to become a leader of the Underground Railroad, then repeatedly returned to slave territory...

I hate using ATMs. It’s not the lines that bother me, nor is it the inevitable awkwardness of the person lurking behind you, seemingly in a rush and looking over your shoulder as you type. No, I hate ATMs because I know when I swipe my card, when the machine dispenses pieces of my livelihood, I have to see that face. His face. On the $20 bill. When historian David Greenberg thinks of Andrew Jackson, he thinks of democracy. When I see Andrew Jackson, I think of my grandmother’s spit. * * * The trip was long. And for an...

<p>In fairness to them, some of the reason for the upset is righteous. “Alexander Hamilton is not someone that people have a problem with,” said the director of the Women On 20s campaign. Why kick the great man off the currency instead of the far more dubious Andrew Jackson? I couldn’t agree more.</p>