Push to Remove Thomas Jefferson on the Nickel – You’ll Be SICK When You See the Replacement

21 Apr, 2016 by Sierra Marlee

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I was okay when I heard the Obama administration planned to replace Andrew Jackson with the gun-toting patriot Harriet Tubman as the face of the $20 bill. This, however, has gone WAY too far.

From DownTrend:

Now that we’ve “broken the seal” so to speak and are going to put black abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, the liberal media are already discussing which coin or bill Barack Obama’s mug should grace.

It’s no joke. Slate has an article titled “Which White Guy Should Obama Replace When We Honor Him On Our Currency” with an “X-ed” out Thomas Jefferson on the nickel.

That Obama is the United States’ most admirable, accomplished modern president is a widely acknowledged fact, of course, but it seems possible that controversy might develop if he replaces another equally beloved figure.

The most obvious candidates for replacement would seem to be Grant and JFK, whose historic import is not quite as weighty as that of the others on the list. If we’re removing someone from the currency, though, it probably makes sense to take off a slave owner rather than an individual like Kennedy who, for all his faults, did not perpetuate the system of owning human beings as property for purposes of unpaid labor. On that note, we should probably also continue to honor Grant, whose support for civil rights during Reconstruction was for many years unjustly maligned because of the influence of white Southern revisionists.

So who does that leave? I would suggest it leaves Thomas Jefferson, who—in addition to having owned slaves and held demeaning views about racial “inferiority”—is already on two items of currency. To respect the positive elements of Jefferson’s legacy, let’s leave him on the $2, giving the nickel over to the first black president. And, while we’re at it, how about we make a symbolic statement about George Washington’s own mixed legacy by leaving him on the dollar but reserving the quarter for the first female president, Hillary Clinton?

To be fair, I’m less worried about who is on my money than the fact that it’s going to be absolutely useless within months. That being said, the cost of changing out several forms of currency is going to be higher than Americans can afford right now. Let’s save this debate until we aren’t trillions of dollars in the hole, alright?