Tubman to Replace Old Hickory. Liberal Agenda Moves Ahead
Photo: nkbimages / E+ / Getty Images Plus
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

It was a significant story that went unremarked because of the Biden regime’s assault on everything normal, and the Democrats’ paranoid delusions about former President Trump and the “insurrection” he supposedly led.

In late January, the regime announced plans to adorn the $20 bill with the image of Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad leader who did not, as popularly believed, lead hundreds of slaves out of the Deep South to freedom.

Still, the $20 must feature Tubman, not Andrew Jackson, a dusty relic of the old Republic.

Writing at Revolver.com, conservative scribe Scott Greer, formerly of the Daily Caller, helpfully reminded readers on Thursday that Biden’s Treasury workers will proceed with the plan that President Trump is accused of delaying.

“The Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the new $20 notes,” Biden mouthpiece Jen Psaki said. “It’s important that our money reflect the history and diversity of our country.”

That isn’t, of course, the main reason Jackson has to go, as Greer explained, noting a screeching one-sentence indictment in the Washington Post:

Jackson was a notorious racist, a slaver who as president was responsible, among other things, for the Trail of Tears, in which thousands of Native Americans died as they were forcibly pushed west. Tubman, on the other hand, is one of the greatest heroes America has produced.

As Greer explained, the Postie who penned the piece didn’t bother telling readers why Tubman “is one of the greatest heroes America has produced.”

Greer directs readers to the real history of Tubman from historian James McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom, who reviewed four books about Tubman for the New York Review of Books in 2004.

McPherson’s conclusion about the main “conductor” on the Underground Railroad — the network of secret meeting places and stash houses that escaping slaves followed from the South to freedom in the North — is this: Because Tubman’s story is largely based off oral histories, it is difficult to know the facts of her life, which has left her story open to embellishment as it was passed down over the years.

Tubman led perhaps five or six dozen slaves to freedom, a notable achievement, but others did more.

Tubman biographer Milton Sernett buried another myth, Greer wrote:

One of the most popular legends about Tubman is that she commanded a black regiment’s raid in South Carolina that destroyed Confederate outposts and freed hundreds of slaves. This would’ve made her the first female to command such an expedition in American history. The problem is that it’s “wishful thinking,” [Sernett says]. Sernett acknowledges she served as a nurse and scout for the Union, but was not a military commander. Sernett also argues that many of the famous quotes attributed to Tubman were not said by her. The retired historian says his thorough research led him to question much of what we claim to know about Tubman.

Not surprisingly, Greer reported, his remark that Tubman should not replace Jackson on the $20 bill invited the usual farago of leftist hate.

Why Tubman Must Replace Jackson

As for Old Hickory, the Treasury Department didn’t put him on the $20 bill for no reason. He was a founding-generation American who fought in the War for Independence and was captured by the British at age 13. Because of Jackson’s courageous war on the money power that controlled the Second Bank of the United States — which precipitated an unsuccessful assassination attempt — the United States broke the shackles of central banking, at least until 1913 and the establishment of the Federal Reserve System. During these years without a central bank, Americans experienced unprecedented economic growth.

But he was also a white man, a slave-owner, and waged war against the Indians. And so a very real if imperfect American hero and symbol must be attacked and replaced, American history rewritten, to fit the new narrative.