The administration of Barack Obama took a half-hearted step towards a new look, proposing the replacement of Alexander Hamilton's portrait on the $10 bill with a portrait of Harriet Tubman, a former slave who became a civil-war hero. It seemed ludicrous to scrap the portrait of the one person on a note who helped create America's financial system. So, the administration decided instead to replace Andrew Jackson, America's seventh president, on the $20 bill. President Donald Trump has since lent his support to keeping Jackson. In a recent interview, his treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, made it clear he had little interest in pursuing the change. As well as the grim aspects of his career-his ownership of slaves and support for the forced relocation of native Americans-his approach to the public finances, though intellectually defensible, makes his use on a note singularly ironic.
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The risks of this approach became obvious after the first superintendent of the currency bureau, Spencer Clark, put his own image on a note. Britain, for example, changes notes quite often, introducing this week a new £10 bill featuring Jane Austen, a 19th-century novelist. By then banknotes may have been superseded entirely and the $20 Tubman bill be no more than a historical
The risks of this approach became obvious after the first superintendent of the currency bureau, Spencer Clark, put his own image on a note. Britain, for example, changes notes quite often, introducing this week a new £10 bill featuring Jane Austen, a 19th-century novelist. By then banknotes may have been superseded entirely and the $20 Tubman bill be no more than a historical