Jackson and Grant on U.S. Money.

[Liberal]

@Captain Amazing

Because when Jackson’s face first got on the bill, the economic orthodoxy was for hard money and for state banks. Bankers and economists at the time thought Jackson was good for American banking.

I guess every generation has its Neville Chamberlains.

[Captain_Amazing]

@Liberal

I guess every generation has its Neville Chamberlains.

I think you’re analogy sort of breaks down there. But when Jackson was put on the currency, we were on the gold standard (which Jackson backed and his opponents didn’t), and we didn’t have any federal bank…just a combination of state and commercial banks (which Jackson backed and his opponents didn’t).

[EEMan]

No man is perfect… not one… and Jackson had his fair share of faults… but he also did a LOT to further the US… as well as set many of the standards of morality that we still follow (and yes he broke many of his own rules with the Native Americans)…

It is interesting how people like Jackson (and to a lesser amount Grant) are remembered for their faults, and not their contributions

[Liberal]

@EEMan

No man is perfect… not one… and Jackson had his fair share of faults… but he also did a LOT to further the US… as well as set many of the standards of morality that we still follow (and yes he broke many of his own rules with the Native Americans)…

It is interesting how people like Jackson (and to a lesser amount Grant) are remembered for their faults, and not their contributions

Faults?

But their fate could not have been worse. When the two-year grace period expired and Jackson had left office, his hand-picked successor, President Martin Van Buren, ordered the removal to begin. Militiamen charged into the Cherokee country and drove the Cherokees from their cabins and houses. With rifles and bayonets they rounded up the Indians and placed them in prison stockades that had been erected “for gathering in and holding the Indians preparatory to removal.” These poor, frightened and benighted innocents, while having supper in their homes, “were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the weary miles of trail which led to the stockade. Men were seized in the fields, women were taken from their wheels and children from their play.” As they turned for one last glimpse of their homes they frequently saw them in flames, set ablaze by the lawless rabble who followed the soldiers, scavenging what they could. These outlaws stole the cattle and other livestock and even desecrated graves in their search for silver pendants and other valuables. They looted and burned. Said one Georgia volunteer who later served in the Confederate army: “I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest I ever saw.”

In a single week some 17,000 Cherokees were rounded up and herded into what was surely a concentration camp. Many sickened and died while they awaited transport to the west. In June the first contingent of about a thousand Indians boarded a steamboat and sailed down the Tennessee River on the first lap of their westward journey. Then they were boxed like animals into railroad cars drawn by two locomotives. Again there were many deaths on account of the oppressive heat and cramped conditions in the cars. For the last leg of the journey the Cherokees walked. Small wonder they came to call this 800-mile nightmare “The Trail of Tears.” Of the approximately 18,000 Cherokees who were removed, at least 4,000 died in the stockades along the way, and some say the figure actually reached 8,000. By the middle of June 1838 the general in charge of the Georgia militia proudly reported that not a single Cherokee remained in the state except as prisoners in the stockade.

At every step of their long journey to the Indian Territory the Cherokees were robbed and cheated by contractors, lawyers, agents, speculators, and anyone wielding local police power. Food supplied by the government disappeared or arrived in short supply. The commanding officer, General Winfield Scott, and a few other generals “were concerned about their reputation for humaneness,” says one modern historian, “and probably even for the Cherokee. There just wasn’t much they could do about it.” As a result many died needlessly. “Oh! The misery and wretchedness that presents itself to our view in going among these people,” wrote one man. “Sir, I have witnessed entire families prostrated with sickness – not one able to give help to the other, and these poor people were made the instruments of enriching a few unprincipled and wicked contractors.”

Andrew Jackson v. the Cherokee Nation — Robert V. Remini, American History Magazine

[Captain_Amazing]

The rights and wrongs of Jackson’s Indian policy, though, are rather off point. They certainly wouldn’t have been an issue to the people who put him on the currency in 1869, who were dealing with their own “Indian problem”, and who, if they had an opinion on Jackson’s or Van Buren’s Indian policies, probably would have looked on them favorably.

[Liberal]

@Captain Amazing

The rights and wrongs of Jackson’s Indian policy, though, are rather off point. They certainly wouldn’t have been an issue to the people who put him on the currency in 1869, who were dealing with their own “Indian problem”, and who, if they had an opinion on Jackson’s or Van Buren’s Indian policies, probably would have looked on them favorably.

And hence BrainGlutton’s analogy and its relevance to the OP, which asked how that monster’s horrible face came to disgrace US currency. It happened because of the myopia and racism of his tycoon pals and cronies.

[BrainGlutton]

@Liberal

And hence BrainGlutton’s analogy and its relevance to the OP, which asked how that monster’s horrible face came to disgrace US currency.

Actually, I was referring to his destruction of the Second Bank of the United States, not the Trail of Tears.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I’ve long thought that Jackson hould be replaced on the twenty by Martin Luther King. What does it take to get an image changed on US currency?

[BrainGlutton]

@Diogenes the Cynic

What does it take to get an image changed on US currency?

Good question. The notes are issued by the Federal Reserve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve), which is technically at least quasi-independent of the government. Nevertheless, as far as design goes, an act of Congress probably would trump any decision of the Fed Board of Governors.

[Liberal]

@Diogenes the Cynic

I’ve long thought that Jackson hould be replaced on the twenty by Martin Luther King. What does it take to get an image changed on US currency?

What a fantastic idea! On so many levels. Thank you, Dio!

[Liberal]

@BrainGlutton

Actually, I was referring to his destruction of the Second Bank of the United States, not the Trail of Tears.

Sorry, then. But you can see how I drew the analogy Hitler -> Jews -> Holocaust :: Jackson -> Cherokee -> Trail of Tears rather than the analogy Hitler -> Jews -> Bank of Germany :: Jackson -> Tycoons -> Bank of the US. (I was actually excited that you and I had agreed on something.)

[BrainGlutton]

@Liberal

Sorry, then. But you can see how I drew the analogy Hitler -> Jews -> Holocaust :: Jackson -> Cherokee -> Trail of Tears rather than the analogy Hitler -> Jews -> Bank of Germany :: Jackson -> Tycoons -> Bank of the US. (I was actually excited that you and I had agreed on something.)

I agree Jackson was a genocidal monster. Then again, at the time (and for some time after), he was by no means outside the “mainstream.”

[Captain_Amazing]

@Liberal

And hence BrainGlutton’s analogy and its relevance to the OP, which asked how that monster’s horrible face came to disgrace US currency. It happened because of the myopia and racism of his tycoon pals and cronies.

First of all, while Jackson wasn’t the most attractive president in the world, his face wasn’t “horrible”.

Second, he wasn’t a monster.

Third, his palls weren’t “tycoons”.

Fourth, he wasn’t placed on the federal currency until about 20 years after his death.

Fifth, if you’re going to condemn every American president who fucked with the Indians or whose administrations took their land, then you’re basically condemning every president of the 18th and 19th century, and not only Jackson needs to be taken off our currency, but Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Grant too. And Jackson doesn’t even have the worst attitude of the presidents about Indians. His original plan was to grant the Cherokee citizenship.

Sixth, Jackson isn’t the only one responsible for the Trail of Tears. Blame Van Buren too…it was his administration that actually removed the Cherokee. Blame the governor of Georgia…it was the Georgians pushing for Cherokee removal that made it happen. Blame Major Ridge and the Treaty Party…they were the ones who actually signed the treaty. Blame John Ross. He was the one who didn’t do anything in the two years between the signature of the treaty and the removal to prepare for the removal he knew was coming. If you’re going to be assigning blame for the events of the Trail of Tears, there’s plenty to go around, without blowing Jackson out of proportion as some sort of supervillian who singlehandedly, out of pure hatred, killed every Cherokee he saw.

[bup]

@Martin Hyde

And lets not forget Washington, who, while he was no military genius kept a rag-tag Army alive against arguably the most powerful military force of his time. He was up against the largest expeditionary force the world had ever seen at that time, and he even scored some key victories (recapturing Boston, Trenton and Princeton) that kept the American cause and its supporters morale high enough to stay in the war.

Well, this debate has gone every other direction imaginable; I’ll say Washington was a military genius.

He understood that winning a battle in the “traditional” view of the day (winning the field) did him no good. It was much better to kill opponents with hunting rifles when the opponents’ muskets were still out of range, and then retreat when they got too close to your ragtag army, who usually didn’t have bayonets.

Inflict damage and disspirit the enemy, and live to fight another day.

It worked, too.

[bup]

By the time we’re done deconstructing the presidents, the only one left fit to be on currency will be Jimmy Carter.

[BrainGlutton]

@bup

By the time we’re done deconstructing the presidents, the only one left fit to be on currency will be Jimmy Carter.

Not quite. The administration of William Henry Harrison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Harrison) was completely untainted!

[smiling_bandit]

Carter is out. Don’t even ask why. It’s not pretty.

Second, I’m honestly surprised at the foolishness on display here. Seriously, people? Jackson? A monster? :rolleyes:

He was not only the most important president between Jefferson and Lincoln, he fundamentally altered the American political system for the better. He showed that popular favor was more important that backroom-politicking. That he kicked the Cherokee off their land is regrettable, but doesn’t make him Satan.

American money rightly emphasizes some of the most important figures of our political system. Nothing and nobody is perfect, and I’m getting really sick of people who can’t accept that. Deal with it. Accept it and move on.

Your words are the words of people who know nothing of monsters. I don’t know monsters and I haven’t seen true evil, except at a distance. And so I do not speak of evil when I should not.

[BrainGlutton]

@smiling bandit

He was not only the most important president between Jefferson and Lincoln, he fundamentally altered the American political system for the better.

For the better?! There is absolutely no value in Jacksonian populism! It was the basis for the “spoils system” in government/politics! And Jackson himself was the most intellectually incompetent president in American history (until Reagan)!

[Frank]

@smiling bandit

Carter is out.

Well, there we go. Now who’s left?

I know! Queen Elizabeth II. Many countries have her on their money; why shouldn’t we? Who could argue with that?

[BrainGlutton]

@BrainGlutton

For the better?! There is absolutely no value in Jacksonian populism! It was the basis for the “spoils system” in government/politics! And Jackson himself was the most intellectually incompetent president in American history (until Reagan)!

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacksonian_democracy:

Broadly, Jacksonian democracy, in contrast to the Jeffersonian era, promoted the strength of the executive branch and the Presidency at the expense of Congressional power, while also seeking to broaden the public’s participation in government. Jacksonians believed in enfranchising all eligible white males, rather than just the propertied class, and supported the patronage system that enabled politicians to appoint their supporters into administrative offices, arguing that it would lead to increased public participation in politics. They opposed appointive judges. They rewrote many state constitutions to reflect the new values. In national terms the Jacksonians favored geographical expansion, sometimes justifying it in terms of Manifest Destiny. There was usually a consensus among both Jacksonians and Whigs that battles over slavery should be avoided. The Jacksonian Era lasted roughly from Jackson’s election until the slavery issue became dominant after 1850 and the American Civil War dramatically reshaped 19th Century American politics.

IMO, the only part of that worth honoring is the broader extension of the franchise. Everything else was either useless or dangerous. Do you care to argue the contrary?