Donald Trump made news when he ordered the U. S. Treasury to stop minting pennies. But I’m wondering how long it will be before he quashes the planned makeover of the $20 bill that is to feature abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the front of the bill, moving slaveowner/president Andrew Jackson to the back side? The new $20 bill is not expected to be circulated until 2030.
Trump is, after all, not only trying to erase all aspects of diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) initiated by prior Democratic administrations, he also is a big fan of Jackson who, folklore says, notoriously disregarded a Supreme Court ruling that rejected Georgia’s attempt to control activities on Native American soil. The court ruled Cherokees possessed sovereignty over their land.
Eventually the Cherokee Nation sold its land and the tribe was forcibly relocated to Oklahoma Territory in a post-Jackson presidency action known as the “Trail of Tears” that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Cherokee (https://search.app/Zdft3AC4tjYRKERT6).
Much like Marie Antoinette’s maligned but never spoken comment concerning starving French peasantry—“Let them eat cake”—Jackson’s reaction to the Supreme Court is probably apocryphal. He is often quoted as saying, “John Marshall (chief justice of the Supreme Court) has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” But the first citation of this admonition “appeared 20 years after Jackson’s death in newspaper publisher Horace Greeley’s 1865 history of the Civil War, The American Conflict,” according to Wikipedia.
In earlier currency action upon taking office again, Trump partially cast aside the likeness of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, by directing the U. S. Treasury to stop minting pennies because their value is significantly less than it costs to produce them.
Lincoln’s visage has been on the penny since 1909, the centennial of his birth. Honest Abe remains on the $5 bill. The initiative to honor Tubman began during Barack Obama’s presidency. And we all know how fond Trump is of anything Obama-related, DEI-related or not.
