The New $20 Bill: Harriet Tubman In (Great), Repulsive President Out (Fantastic)

Andrew Jackson will be taken off the front of $20 bills, and for at least two good reasons: First, Harriet Tubman, his replacement, is a genuine American hero, an abolitionist who put her own life at risk to usher hundreds of slaves to freedom.

And the other reason?

Andrew Jackson was a dreadful president, a loathsome businessman and a decidedly repulsive man.

So, yes, while it's beyond time that the United States kicked it up a notch when it comes to recognizing the women who helped shape this country, it's also way beyond time that the nation stop honoring the racist, mass-murdering, slave trader who was Andrew Jackson.

So how did this man come be the face of such high-profile legal tender?

According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, there aren’t any records from when the decision to put him on the 20 was made nearly a century ago. Prior to that, Jackson's vicious mug had been featured on stamps as well as the $5, the $10, and even the $10,000 bill. Nobody's exactly sure how he got on those bills, either.

Jackson would hardly be eligible for a 20-cent coin today, if we had one.

His single qualifying attribute is that, as is required for the position on American currency, he's dead.

His presidency is no point of national pride; he is most likely to be brought up in high school history classes in reference to his brutal treatment of Native Americans.

He may be most remembered for his role in the “Trail of Tears,” the name given to the forced displacement of tens of thousands of Cherokees from their native lands.

The Trail of Tears was the result of a heartless and deeply unjust piece of legislation called the Indian Removal Act, which granted Jackson the authority to move Native Americans from their settled lands to the area west of the Mississippi River.

In Georgia, Cherokee leaders brought legal challenge the state's efforts to force them to move. The Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. government had no right to kick Native Americans off their land.

Jackson had no regard for the court's authority. He forced the Cherokees off the land anyway. Diseases, starvation, and harsh conditions made the journey extremely perilous, compounding the grave injustice of the initial land theft. Thousands of the Cherokees died during the expulsion from Georgia.

Jackson's open disregard for the separation of powers in government, particularly for such unjust ends, has not been judged favorably by history.

In addition to committing unwarranted acts of large-scale violence and oppression, Jackson’s placement on the $20 bill is particularly ironic given his hatred of paper money. He preferred silver and gold coins and despised the whole idea of central banking.

The reasons major figures like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln ended up on the one and the five, respectively, hardly need to be explained.

But why Jackson for the 20? Who ever thought that was a good idea?

Some have suggested that it may have been a form of pre-modern trolling of the deceased president, given his dislike of flimsy currency. Others point to his success in paying off the national debt as an explanation for his face’s impressive placement. And in his time, Andrew Jackson was regarded as a populist president, his disregard for human life notwithstanding.

Whatever the reason was then, there seems be no reason to keep printing out his face from ATMs nationwide.

You can give Jackson credit for his climb out of poverty and into the presidency if you want to, but if that's the standard, Tubman, who was born into slavery, makes for a far more valuable $20 than the current edition.

Photo Credit: Seth Tisue via Flickr