Harriet Tubman to Replace Andrew Jackson on $20 Bill

[Nuvendil]

nuckles87 said:

Nuvendil said:

I am well aware of Jackson's history.  I didn't say there weren't possible good reasons, but slavery wasn't one of them.  And he did perform heroically in the confrontation with Britain in Louisiana.  There are far more ineffectual presidents.  Like William Henry Harrison, who died officially of pneumonia and unofficially of plain old stupidity.  Or James Buchanan, who not only failed to maintain stability between the North and South but managed to dissolve all useful efforts made by past Presidents to keep the Union together.  

Ulyses S Grant...eh.  Neither here nor there, just a stable face for a country in recovery who got some things right and got some things wrong.  Didn't do any great but hardly a terrible president.  And his efforts as a general are often glossed over due to the frankly inflated abilities of his rival Robert E Lee (excellent field commander, not so excellent at long term campaigns and logistics) (and exaggerated stories that painted him as a drunken lug).  At least as president he was better than Andrew Johnson who not only opposed things like former slave citizenship but proceeded to let the entire reconstruction situation go to crap.  He did make serious efforts for African American rights, economic growth, and and Indian peace.  They didn't all succeed - most notoriously the economic policies - but that's a heck of a lot better than the likes of Buchanan and Johnson who did nothing or worse than nothing.

The point I was making was that slavery wasn't really the reason. He was specifically targeted by groups who wanted a woman on the $20 because of his role in the Trails of Tears, not because of slave ownership.

I would guess the article called Jackson a slaveholder to easily draw a stark comparison between her and Jackson, but I've not heard anyone who's actually been trying to get this done for the past year cite it.

Well this has been going on for longer than a year really, Indians have been upset over it for a long time.  Many Indian tribes won't take $20 bills.  But what I don't get is why they went with Tubman as opposed to Martin Luther King Jr, the face and leader of the best of the Civil Rights Movement.  But then, like I already said, I overall find this a silly waste of time and effort that could be more productively applied for elsewhere.