Andrew Jackson was a slave owner and killed countless Native Americans in his quest for manifest destiny.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean we should take him off the $20 bill.
That being said, the man was so instrumental in forging our modern conception of democracy that his name is now an adjective for it: Jacksonian democracy.
Perhaps the more appropriate question is whether or not he should be stripped of this placement today.
The removal of past honors is a complex subject.
When statues of dictators are felled in foreign countries, nearly all Americans celebrate alongside the newly liberated.
However, when the glorification of controversial figures in America is brought up for review, the issue is not as two-dimensional.
Some of this complication is due to the fact that most American figures such as Jackson might be controversial, but not nearly as universally condemned as the tyrant whose statue is smashed following a revolution.
Jackson achieved quite a few victories for popular democracy and political reform.
There’s a substantial difference between the very people who suffered under a ruler removing signs of their oppression than those several generations removed challenging historical ideas.
Removing figures from currency — much like renaming buildings, as is being considered at Yale, and demolishing Confederate monuments, considered throughout the South — is ahistorical.
This is not to say that in all instances it is inappropriate, but without careful consideration the process could be abused to force history into whatever narrative is fashionable — not without precedent in other parts of the world.
More to the point, the move by Jack Lew, President Obama’s appointed treasury secretary, to place a woman on our paper currency reeks of pandering.
This is the sort of move that gets lots of media attention but has no political or policy significance whatsoever.
Every American will have a tangible reminder of both Lew and Obama’s tenure as long as their favored figures remain on our currency.
I can already envision the Huffington Post articles extolling this oh-so-historic decision.
Up to this point, occupying a position on American currency has historically been reserved as an honor for those considered our greatest leaders and figures.
By making his aim explicitly to get a woman on an American bill, Lew is breaking this precedent.
Rather than removing what he considers a less deserving figure, Jackson, and placing someone else on the bill, Lew has decided to indulge the politically correct mobs.
Surely, in the United States of all places, merit should take precedence.
It demeans the accomplishments of all women to insist that a sort of quota or special consideration should be given to them.
zaochamb@indiana.edu
