As Hillary Clinton calls for Harriet Tubman to appear on the bill, members of the party Jackson founded discuss whether or not he deserves to remain

Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to be a fan of a former Democratic president. Yet unlike any potshots she might take at Barack Obama or Jimmy Carter – or her husband – her stance doesn’t seem to have any negative political consequences.

On Thursday, Clinton’s Twitter account voiced support for a growing effort to remove Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill and replace him with Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist who led several dozen slaves on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to freedom in the 1850s. (The Clinton campaign did not respond to multiple requests to further elucidate her position.)

Yet, despite the fact that Jackson has long been considered an icon in his home state of Tennessee, lawmakers there do not seem particularly eager to fight for his place on American currency with the same gusto that the aggressive seventh president waged his battles.

Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) Harriet Tubman could be the first woman on the $20 bill. Awesome, well deserved—and about time. http://t.co/VIw2KyWEzX #womenon20s

Tubman won an online vote held by a group called Women on 20s, which is seeking to put a woman on American currency; currently, the only woman granted that honor is Sacagawea, who has appeared on a little-circulated dollar coin since 2000. The group has targeted Jackson as the man to be removed because of his support for the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

This bill empowered him as the president to negotiate treaties with the “Five Civilized Tribes” east of the Mississippi to enable them to be moved to federal land in Oklahoma. The result of the treaties, many of which were only agreed to by a minority within the respective tribes, was the “Trail of Tears”, a series of forced relocations. In the historical judgment of Women on 20s – and others – this was “not OK”.

But that wasn’t Jackson’s only noteworthy action in office.

The Tennessean served as president from 1829 to 1837 and was perhaps the most important figure in American politics during the period between the founding of the United States in 1776 and the civil war in the 1860s. He inspired the term “Jacksonian democracy”, which describes the movement in that period towards universal white male suffrage, ending property requirements to run for office or to vote. Jackson also quashed the first attempt at secession by South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis of 1832. In addition to all of this, Jackson, a former congressman and senator, was the greatest American general of the War of 1812, in which he won an overwhelming victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans.

Yet for all of that, the current attempts to erase Jackson’s place on the currency did not draw particularly strong opposition in Tennessee.



Perhaps the strongest defense of the seventh president came from Jim Cooper, a longtime Democratic congressman from the Volunteer State. He told the Guardian in a statement: “I agree that men should no longer monopolize the images on US paper money. All the men pictured, with the possible exception of Washington, were deeply flawed.”

However, Cooper added: “But to drop Jackson, one of the most popular presidents in history and the founder of the Democratic party, would be a mistake. As a Tennessean, I would drop Grant from the $50, not Jackson from the $20.”

Ulysses S Grant, a civil war hero and general from Ohio, was the 18th US president.



Steve Cohen, the only other Democratic congressman from Tennessee, was somewhat more open to change. He thought both Tubman and Jackson were great Americans and should be recognized. Cohen said he has “never been one to replace one person’s recognition and honor with another”.

Cohen suggested Tubman “could be on the $20 bill with Andrew Jackson on another bill”.

The four-term congressman noted that he would like to see more American women and minorities recognized in general. “I’ve suggested we have 150 statutes [in Statuary Hall], not 100, to show changes in society,” he said. The Tennessee Democrat also opined that Clinton’s anti-Jackson move wouldn’t make much of a political difference in his home state, which Bill Clinton carried in 1992 and 1996 but which has gone solidly Republican since then.

“If Hillary Clinton could bring Andrew Jackson back to life and have him give a speech at the inauguration, I don’t think it would be enough for her to carry Tennessee,” he said.

The Tennessee Democrat most guarded about the issue was Mary Mancini, the state party chair. When the Guardian reached her by telephone on Monday, she said “that’s a good question” and immediately put the phone on hold for several minutes. When she returned to the call, she simply said: “It’s a good conversation that we should have about equality, about who is presented on our money and how we can be more representative of the population as a whole.”

Mancini declined to express further opinions about the currency question while noting that “Andrew Jackson was not a perfect person” and pointing out that “just because he is the founder of the Democratic party doesn’t mean we back everything that he did”. Instead, she simply thought it was “a conversation that needs to be had”.

Yet these were still far stronger opinions than other politicians have expressed about the issue. In a statement, Craig Crawford, a spokesman for former senator and potential Democratic candidate Jim Webb, dismissed the issue by saying: “We’re not worried who’s on the $20 bill. We’re more concerned about how many Americans don’t have enough $20 bills.”

Among Republicans, a spokesman for presidential candidate Lindsey Graham, who hails from the same region of South Carolina where Jackson was born, said the three-term senator “doesn’t think there should be any changes to the $20 bill”. Further, Tennessee senator Bob Corker simply shrugged and seemed indifferent when asked. “I don’t have a lot to say,” he told the Guardian. “Andrew Jackson certainly has a major place in Tennessee history, but I don’t make determinations as to who is on dollar bills.”

Much of the ambivalence about Jackson is likely due to his role in the Indian Removal. And it certainly doesn’t help that the seventh president was a slave owner who killed a man in a duel. While he was long regarded as a populist liberal who was a precursor to Democrats of a later generation like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, recent historiography has focused more on his conflicts with Native Americans and other minority groups. The result is that after 87 years on the $20 bill, few are willing to wholeheartedly defend Jackson staying on our currency, even those from his home state. It seems this is one issue where Hillary Clinton’s bold stand has not been in the slightest bit controversial.