People generally don't like change. So the announcement on Wednesday that the new $20 bill would feature former slave, abolitionist, Underground Railroad conductor and spy Harriet Tubman, replacing Andrew Jackson, met with some consternation. Which is both to be expected and perfectly understandable.
I'll note upfront that I am fine with the decision, in part because I have noticed over the course of my life that I spend very little time worrying about who is on my money and why. The $1 bill has a pyramid with a floating eye over it, which is a lot more thought-provoking than an engraving of a former president. There's huge symbolism to changing a currency, of course — but there's not a lot of symbolism to seeing Andrew Jackson on a bill after he has been there for almost a century. One $20 bill had Grover Cleveland on it, for Pete's sake. This is not exactly something that's sacrosanct.
What has been interesting in the wake of the Wednesday announcement, though, is a particular response to the proposal that has now come up at least three times. Why not put Tubman on currency, but some other denomination? Maybe a new denomination, even?
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Speaking to CNN, former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson proposed putting Tubman on the $2 bill, which, you'll be surprised to learn, is still in circulation. (In fact, there are 1.1 billion of them out there somewhere, though who knows where.)
On her show on Fox News on Wednesday night, Greta Van Susteren rejected the Tubman plan. To prevent "dividing the country between those who ... want President Andrew Jackson to stay put" and those who don't, she said, per Politico, why not give Tubman a new denomination, like, say, a $25 bill?
And on Thursday morning, Donald Trump agreed. "Andrew Jackson had a great history," he told NBC's Matt Lauer. "I think it's very rough when you take someone off the bill. Andrew Jackson had a history of tremendous success for the country. ... I think Harriet Tubman is fantastic. I would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can maybe come up with another denomination. Maybe we do the $2 bill or we do another bill."
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"I don't like seeing it. I think it's pure political correctness," he said. "Been on the bill for many, many years and really represented somebody that really was very important to this country. I would love to see another denomination. I think that would be more appropriate."
Let's side aside the debate over the relative positive and negative qualities of Jackson over the course of his life, which have been debated at length elsewhere. And let's set aside that Tubman, too, was somebody important to the country, in a very different way.
It's worth considering the response here. In a way, it's a compromise position, having your bill and spending it, too. Keep Jackson and give Tubman something else. Everyone's happy.
Except for three things.
First, this ignores that the move is a deliberately symbolic one, meant to reflect the evolution of the United States since 1928, when Jackson was added (to mark the centennial of his presidency). As above, there is no real long-term import to who's on the money. The Indiana state quarter had a race car on it, and that didn't prompt a lot of hand-wringing over the loss of the noble eagle clutching his bundle of arrows. The depictions on currency make a statement about the nation most dramatically when the switch is made. In 10 years, Tubman will just be another face on the money.
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Second, the entire point of relegating Tubman to another currency is that no one uses it. You know who's on the $2? Thomas Jefferson, whose contributions to the nation far outweigh Jackson's. Sure, he's got a nickel, too, but unless you're a 1920s paperboy, you're not using those with any regularity. The idea to bump Tubman to the $2 is not about the merits of Tubman, it's about visibility.
Likewise with the nonexistent $25. I realize that Van Susteren was speaking off the cuff and isn't necessarily advocating that particular denomination, but those bills don't exist for a reason. Printing money is expensive, and creating bills in new denominations just to get another picture out there is simply a waste of money. Readers of a certain age will remember when the Sacagawea dollar coin was introduced. How many times did you actually use one?
Third, it is impossible to avoid the subtext to this argument. Give Tubman a separate — but totally equal in importance! — denomination all for herself. We don't want to change the way we do things and have Tubman in the mix with our other bills, so she can have her own bill over there and everyone is happy. This isn't Jim Crow, but it's hard not to see how the rationale isn't similar.
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Tubman will go on the $20, and then people will forget it was a big deal. This is a bit of the friction that happens when you take a hard turn. We probably won't be debating this next week, much less in a decade. And, in a way, it's totally appropriate that to effect this change — promoting a woman born into slavery in Maryland over the man who was sworn in as president when she was still a small child — there's one last gasp of the arguments that defined the Civil Rights era.
And we can also keep Jefferson on the $2, which should make everyone happy.
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