Changing the Face of Currency in America
Recently, an issue that has garnered a lot of attention in America is the issue of currency, more specifically, changing the faces of it. It was announced earlier this month that Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, along with some other changes to the $10 and $5. Many call this move some long overdue social justice for the women who made history, despite the obstacles in their way due to their sex, and I agree. However, I think that this line of thinking, and the approaches it has taken as a movement, run the risk of enacting a form of blind social justice, by which I mean simply wiping out anyone who is male and replacing them with anyone who is female. What I would hope that the movement, and all of us as Americans, could strive for, is rather an informed social justice, one that historically analyzes the contributions and flaws of our current currency figure heads, and decides the best course of action from there.
      Before launching in to this idea, let me take a moment to explain in detail what exactly the US Treasury decided. First of all, as everyone is aware, Harriet Tubman, who should hopefully need no introduction, will be replacing Andrew Jackson on the face of the twenty dollar bill. She will be the first female and the first African-American to be featured on American paperback money. But thatâs not all. Alexander Hamilton will keep his place on the front of the ten, and will be joined on the back of the bill by famous womenâs rights advocates Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul, and Sojourner Truth. These women, each in their own way, were catalysts of the womenâs suffrage movement and champions of womenâs rights.
      The back of the five dollar bill will also undergo a transformation, as it will now feature Marian Anderson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The story here involves a controversy over the Daughters of the American Revolution not allowing Marian Anderson, a famous singer at the time, to perform at Constitution Hall due to a âwhites onlyâ clause. Eleanor Roosevelt, a formidable historical figure in her own right, stepped down from the Daughters of the American Revolution due to their refusal to let Anderson perform, and instead organized a concert for her at the Lincoln Memorial, which attracted a crowd of over 75,000 people. The third face featured in this tableau is also know for their ability to draw crowds to the Lincoln Memorial, as MLK certainly did when he delivered his âI Have a Dreamâ speech.
      According to the Department of the Treasury, the $10 was slated to get a new face next due to counterfeit statistics. However, it has now been decided that Hamilton will remain. In no small part was the source of the sudden outpouring of support for keeping this lesser-known founding father on the bill Broadwayâs newest sensation, Hamilton. If you are unfamiliar, this now Pulitzer Prize winning work written by MacArthur Genius award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda tells the story of Alexander Hamilton, from destitute bastard orphan on St. Croix, to Washingtonâs aide de camp during the American Revolution, to the first Secretary of the Treasury in Washingtonâs cabinet, to the subject of Americaâs first political sex scandal, to a man whoâs legacy was largely erased by his enemies who outlived him after his infamous duel with Aaron Burr. The show is based on the critically acclaimed biography of the ever so often overlooked founding father Hamilton by Ron Chernow, which I am now in the process of re-reading. I could write a whole separate essay or two on this show, and in fact I have, (seriously, go look in to this show if you havenât already) but what sticks out to me in regards to social justice is that erasing Hamilton from the ten dollar bill would be a great social injustice. During the 1790s, a time that historians deem the most crucial in defining what Americaâs political system would be, Alexander Hamilton, serving as the first Secretary of the Treasury in Washingtonâs cabinet, was adamant about establishing a national bank. I simply do not understand how people think it makes sense to take the man responsible for the creation of the national banking system in this country off of the product of that very institution, our national currency.
      A common argument for taking Hamilton off of the bill is that no one really knows who he is, in part because he was never a President. To this, I would remind people that history is written by the victors, and in his duel with Aaron Burr, Hamilton was not victorious. His life story was left to be told, or rather largely ignored, by those left living and left in power, who due to disagreements of policy and personality, did not like Hamilton at all. Because of this, a key theme of Chernowâs biography and of the musical is that Eliza Hamilton, his wife, is largely responsible for keeping Hamiltonâs legacy alive after his death so that we may go back and learn about him. The fact that he was never President isnât really relevant, given the fact that Benjamin Franklin proudly boasts a place on the $100, despite the fact that he was never elected Commander in Chief.
      Another argument some propose for replacing him is that Hamiltonâs reputation is not completely clean. As previously mentioned, Hamilton was the subject of Americaâs first political sex scandal, known as the Reynolds Affair, in which he cheated on his wife Eliza with Maria Reynolds and paid off her husband to keep it a secret. Now, this is not great. I am not trying to imply that this is by any means a good thing. But I challenge you to find any one political figure who has a completely sterling reputation. History often likes to leave out these little known facts about past leaders of our country, but they are still there. For example, censorship of the press was used to a higher degree than could ever be considered constitutional under Lincoln in an effort to squash opposition to the war effort in the north, despite the fact that Lincoln will go down in history for all time as the man who freed the slaves. Franklin, Delano Roosevelt is revered for getting the US out of the Great Depression, however we easily forget, or in some cases never even learn, about Executive Order 9066, a piece of legislation that put every Japanese-American citizen into an interment camp on American soil, which is now considered one of the greatest humans rights violations of the 20th century. In saying this, I am by no means trying to discredit the good that these men did, because they absolutely did do good things for our country, but they were not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. When discussing Alexander Hamilton, we are already dealing with a historical figure whoâs positive legacy has been largely erased or at least de-emphasized by the narrative of American history taught in most schools. He is also a man whoâs flaws were personal ones, not abuses of the office that he upheld. No political figure is perfect. Certainly some were more moralistic than others and did more good than bad, and some had better public relations teams to cover it up, but the fact is, that in this country we overwhelmingly tend to view our leaders as one-dimensional figments of the past, and this is a grave mistake. In integrating themes of sociology to the study of history, one will quickly see how our leaders were, and still are, simply people. Politics has certainly evolved (devolved?) since the days of Washingtonâs first cabinet, but the fact that leaders are simply people living in and therefore influenced by a specific time and place in history is true all around.
      Based on this line of thought, I guess it would be unfair to say then, that in the case of Jackson, the man who is actually getting kicked off of currency, we have an example of a particularly bad historical figure. I do not mean for this article to turn into an anti-Jackson rant, but the fact is that in the case of this particular man, the negatives really do seem to outweigh the positives. This is said not as an attempt to vilify the human being, but as a statement of fact based on policy, especially in regards to his actions surrounding finances, which is in fact the subject of the currency replacement debate. While he wasnât busy forcibly relocating Native Americans on the Trail of Tears, or engaging in questionable voting practices, Andrew Jackson spent much of his time devoted to dismantling the national bank. This is something he himself openly and proudly stated, not some sort of revisionist conjecture against him. It is simply fact. Iâm aware that someone reading this article will feel the need to comment, âBut Jackson is the only president in history to pay off the national debt in full! He deserves a place on our money!â To that, I would encourage them to research why Jackson paid the debt off, how it was accomplished, and about how long that lasted. Jackson saw paying off the debt as a means to an end of the bank. He despised the financial institution as a whole, but he knew that if he got rid of it without first paying off the debt, the criticism would be too great and it would most likely damage his reputation beyond repair. So, in an incredible feat, he brought the national debt from $58 million to $0. This was accomplished not only by blocking virtually any bill that required a price tag of any amount, as well as by using the emerging real-estate bubble on Western land to his advantage by selling it off (which obviously required the forced removal of the people who already lived there). This approach to economics backfired on a large scale. As a result of the bursting of the housing bubble, the economy crashed, which sent America into recession. Of course Jackson cannot be personally blamed for the inevitable, but his policies certainly did not help the situation. As a result of the economic crisis, the government started borrowing money again, ending the debt-free approach. (Fun fact- Andrew Jackson also has a musical written about him. Fun fact- it has been nowhere near as successful as Hamilton.)
      In my mind the bottom line here is this: Alexander Hamilton spent his political career trying to establish a national bank. Andrew Jackson spent his political career trying to destroy it. You tell me who deserves their face on a dollar bill.
      Because of this, I fully support the Department of the Treasuryâs decision. I know it will probably take a few years for the details to be secured and for the new bills to actually become used in widespread circulation, but it is a much needed step in the right direction. I hope that future decisions will follow this trend of informed rather than blind social justice. To simply replace every man with any woman only because of the difference in sex is not an educated decision, but incorporating both men and women on our dollar bills is a testament to all of those who made history what it is, and something worth not just remembering, but celebrating.
