Ben Bernanke, the former head of the Federal Reserve Board, has come to the defense of Alexander Hamilton after an atrocious announcement from President Obama's Treasury Secretary that our nation's first Treasury Secretary would be pushed to the side by a woman. As most of you know, Jack Lew, Hamilton's current successor as Treasury Secretary, announced that a woman would grace the new $10 bill. Bernanke is "appalled" - and he's not alone.
I applaud the U.S. government's desire to put a woman on our currency. That is long overdue. But to dump the first Treasury Secretary and one of our most preeminent Founding Fathers is outrageous. Were it not for Alexander Hamilton, we might not even have currency today. We might not even have a working economy today. It's because of Hamilton that we can even have this discussion. And for a modern-day Treasury Secretary to want him shoved aside displays a brazen lack of gratitude and a complete detachment from America's history.
Take a few moments to write the President, the Treasury Secretary, and your Member of Congress to express your support for Alexander Hamilton. As for putting a woman on the currency, I agree 100% with Bernanke's suggestion: Dump Andrew "Trail of Tears" Jackson. Leave Hamilton where he is.
18 comments:
I happily agree 100% I would add that to honor women involved in the development and growth of the new nation more than one could share the honor. My immediate recommendations would be:
Abigail Adams,
Mercy Otis Warren, and
Sacagawea (with the sweet deliciousness of displacing Jackson).
I think that each one defines a unique character and a unique role.
I agree: Hamilton is the wrong guy to replace. It shows how ignorant people are of our country's history. I thought they were going to replace Jackson on the $20. That would work for me!
Tokenism. Madison is next in historical merit; there is nobody in 2nd place. That an unnamed female is already anointed shows the hollowness of the enterprise. If we're going to do the r/c/g game, Frederick Douglass and MLK have far more historical merit than any of the female nominees--unless you want to give the nod to Susan B for women's suffrage, which I'm cool with.
Agree about Jackson. For many native Americans, his face is like the Rebel flag is to many black folk. We can do better, and have.
Former Federal Reserve Head Ben Bernanke Defends Alexander Hamilton - and He's Right!
FYI - In terms of history, the only really knowledgeable posting on the Internet about this subject that I have seen comes from "Hamilton and the Tenner" by William Hogeland June 21, 2015 https://williamhogeland.wordpress.com/
More polemics than anything. Hamilton's other contributions to the republic, such as his service as a general in the Revolution and as an author of the Federalist Papers, are elided.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/24/hating-alexander-hamilton-an-american-tradition/
I applaud the U.S. government's desire to put a woman on our currency. That is long overdue.
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I guess academics feel they have to utter humbug like this. A few weeks back, I was looking at a list compiled by a women's history maven of women of historical significance in America. On that list were all of four who founded or maintained an agency with an abiding corporate existence or institutional mission:
1. Clara Barton
2. Frances Perkins
3. Margaret Sanger
4. Emma Willard
And there you have it. The fourth on the list founded a modest private school in Troy, N.Y. Sticking her on the currency is rather de trop. The third was plain evil. The second is an interesting person, but there are a fistful of her peers who are just as interesting, among the Pres. Roosevelt himself. That leaves you with the first of these as someone who might just be a plausible candidate, and only one to replace Jackson, not Hamilton.
My immediate recommendations would be:
Both recommendations are lousy. Who's on the currency now? That's right, men who founded institutions, governed institutions, and fought in battle. That's the standard, Kemosabe. Sacajawhatsherface doesn't cut it. Give it 50 or 100 years, and maybe we'll think Meg Whitman merits it.
While we're at it, if you have to ask Who is she?, she does not belong on the currency. You're second suggestion is a revolutionary era pamphleteer. I'll see your Mercy and raise you Massachusettensis.
Susan B. Anthony (for women's suffrage), Harriet Tubman (as the most prominent leader of the Underground Railroad and a symbol of the anti-slavery movement) and Clara Barton (founder of the Red Cross) are all worthy additions to our currency - in their own right (whether they were women or not). But none should displace Hamilton.
Anonymous Art Deco said...
My immediate recommendations would be:
Both recommendations are lousy. Who's on the currency now? That's right, men who founded institutions, governed institutions, and fought in battle. That's the standard, Kemosabe. Sacajawhatsherface doesn't cut it. Give it 50 or 100 years, and maybe we'll think Meg Whitman merits it.
Let's just put Hillary on now and be done with it.
Susan B. Anthony (for women's suffrage), Harriet Tubman (as the most prominent leader of the Underground Railroad and a symbol of the anti-slavery movement) and Clara Barton (founder of the Red Cross) are all worthy additions to our currency - in their own right (whether they were women or not).
Really? Re Anthony: We put any political agitator of a certain level of obtrusiveness on the currency 'in his own right'? Howzabout Jerry Rubin? Re: Tubman, she was remarkably cunning and courageous. So are a many in our Special Forces (some of whom have liberated people by the dozens).
While we're at it, Wm. F. Buckley, Jr., a fairly erudite layman who completed his schooling ca. 1949, reportedly once sent a memo to a colleague asking who this Harriet Tubman person was and why he had never heard of her. We can check old textbooks, but I'll wager you Tubman vignettes in school texts are not an antique phenomenon.
In fairness, Art, I gave Anthony a nod because she helped get a Constitutional amendment passed. That's real accomplishment. Harriet Tubman, alas, helped free only 70 slaves via the Underground RR, perhaps another 100 indirectly, and her political effect pales next to, say, Frederick Douglass's.
Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross, OK, I guess, but the point of being on US Government currency has been that you had something to do with US Government. we have postage stamps for the other stuff.
In fairness, Art, I gave Anthony a nod because she helped get a Constitutional amendment passed.
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Peripatetic she was, for a full house of causes. She was not a figure within the government. I'm holding out for Joan Baez, a deficit of concrete accomplishments notwithstanding. Better visuals.
https://www.google.com/search?q=joan+baez+images&biw=1366&bih=657&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=LWSTVfKeKYGesAWz55noBg&ved=0CB0QsAQ#imgrc=ABqu9373O4DqmM%3A
Few note the irony that Joan Baez' biggest hit was "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."
Like my father before me
I'm a working man
And like my brother before me
I took a rebel stand
Well, he was just 18, proud and brave
But a yankee laid him in his grave
I swear by the blood below my feet
You can't raise a Caine back up
When he's in defeat
I'd say that's the sentiment behind flying the Rebel flag...
Was that her biggest hit? I like the original (the Band's) better. I think her best is her version of Dylan's "Forever Young." The best song she wrote, IMO, is "Diamonds & Rust," my favorite version of which is Judas Priest's more recent (as opposed to older) version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIC7KQPDuDc
I'm pinching myself and checking my vitals as I type these next words, but... I'm actually going to come down on the side of politically correct egalitarianism here. Ugh. Almost hurts to type that. I'm aware that, weighed on merit alone, there are plenty of male Americans standing in line ahead of Tubman, Anthony, Barton, et al, but...
This isn't about merit alone.
Think about it. On the merits alone...does Martin Luther King, Jr. warrant a national holiday above, say, James Madison? That George Washington has effectively LOST his holiday to all the other Presidents (his birthday being culturally displaced by "Presidents Day") has set up a situation where Dr. King is now celebrated even above the father of our country! At least in terms of holidays.
But...as with currency...our holidays aren't simply about comparing resumes to see who deserves one. I remember, as a kid, asking my dad about MLK Day. MLK got his holiday during the Reagan years when I was growing up. And my dad said something I'll not forget. Though I was suggesting that Lincoln, Madison, perhaps even Jefferson might deserve a holiday before King, my dad said that "if this helps bring peace and healing to the nation, it's worth it."
If putting a woman on our currency helps women feel less marginalized and gives young girls a role model to which they can more readily relate, then I think it may be justified to let Susan B Anthony or Clara Barton leap-frog over Thomas Jefferson (we don't see many $2 bills), James Madison, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and others who (based on their resumes) have a legitimate claim to be remembered on our currency.
I don't normally advocate the PC line, but I think in this case, there's reason for it. And quite honestly...
Andrew Jackson SHOULD be replaced. Yes, he accomplished some positive things for our nation (winning the Battle of New Orleans so decisively being toward the top of that list), but there's plenty on the negative side to disqualify him. And so if you're going to replace Jackson (and we should), then why not replace him with a woman?
The main point I was trying to make it my blog post, though, is one I'll reiterate now: Leave Alexander Hamilton alone. He deserves to remain on the $10 bill for as long as we have a $10 bill.
This isn't about merit alone.
Are you offering that as a normative statement?
If putting a woman on our currency helps women feel less marginalized and gives young girls a role model to which they can more readily relate, then I think it may be justified
Women-in-general are not 'marginalized'. It is not reasonable for women to 'feel' marginalized. It is not wise to accede to someone else's self-dramatizations in any case. And the real problems in living actual women have are not in the least addressed by mucking about with the currency or the stamps or public monuments.
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there's reason for it. And quite honestly...
There are always 'reasons'. It's just that some reasons are asinine.
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Think about it. On the merits alone...does Martin Luther King, Jr. warrant a national holiday above, say, James Madison? That George Washington has effectively LOST his holiday to all the other Presidents (his birthday being culturally displaced by "Presidents Day") has set up a situation where Dr. King is now celebrated even above the father of our country! At least in terms of holidays.
And you're argument is what, that Congress and the President did something foolish in 1983 to strike attitudes or get the news media or Coretta King off their backs and now every crummy thing roughly analogous is justified?
Here's a solution: understand that holidays are aspects of popular culture and are not properly state-imposed contrivances. By 'popular culture' I mean something along the lines of the definition offered by Anthony Esolen: the songs people sing with their own voices and play on their own instruments, not mass entertainment products. The government properly recognizes extant celebrations and adds them to employers' obligations. The only real holidays celebrated coast to coast are Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and the 4th of July. Memorial Day was at one time, but not any more.
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