Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill ...

Once again, the left and Democrats prize symbolism over substance. 

Nothing against Harriet Tubman, famed abolitionist and suffragette, but she’s not a founding father, former Secretary of the Treasury, or former President of the United States. 

The left and Democrats want her image on the $20 bill to replace that of Andrew Jackson. 

Jackson was a former Representative, Senator, Justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court, General, Hero of the Battle of New Orleans, Vice President, and President. He’s also the only President in our history to fully pay off the national debt.  However, he also owned slaves.

And that’s the publicized liberal rationale for kicking him off the $20 bill.  The slave thing. But the real reason they want Tubman on the $20 bill is to pander to segments of their base. Tubman checks five important boxes for them: she was black; she was a slave at one time; she was an abolitionist who smuggled slaves to freedom; she was a suffragette; and she was a woman.

Unfortunately, her hands aren’t entirely clean. But you won’t hear much about that; you’ll only hear glowing praise for her heroic actions to oppose slavery and advance women’s rights. 

That’s ignoring another part of her past. A not so praiseworthy part.      

Tubman recruited volunteers to join with abolitionist John Brown, who’d already murdered five men in Kansas, for his planned attack on Harper’s Ferry in 1859.  Brown referred to her as “General Tubman.” Brown’s plan – which Tubman knew and endorsed – was to seize that Federal armory by force and distribute its weapons among slaves to start a bloody rebellion.

It ultimately failed after the deaths of defenders, hostages, attackers and some of Brown’s own family.  Afterward, Brown was hanged for treason along with other members in his raiding party. 

So Tubman played a big role in trying to start a bloody rebellion. Ever hear that before? 

Probably not. It doesn’t fit the left’s or the media’s narrative.  To them she’s a saint.

Jackson’s bad because he owned slaves when it was perfectly legal to do so.  Whatever we all feel about slavery now, slavery was very common then; even some freed blacks owned slaves.  Tubman, on the other hand, plotted with John Brown to attack and seize a Federal armory and start a race war, which certainly wasn’t common at the time, but somehow that’s okay.

Why not put her on the $20 bill, then? 

The Trump administration – specifically Treasury Secretary Mnuchin – has said that Tubman won’t go on the $20 bill anytime soon.  Democrats are howling that’s a sign that Trump is a racist.

I don’t believe it has anything to do with racism but more with keeping the images on our currency from becoming playthings for politicians and special interest groups. I’m good with that. 

On postage stamps, okay; if you want a stamp with Tubman on it, or anybody else, living or dead, real or imaginary, I don’t care. Hell, Elvis got a stamp – and he’s no American hero, sorry.  So did a lot of other people. Stamps are disposable. Just like popular trends. Something to think about.  

Once you start replacing images on our currency to appease special interest groups, where does it end? Does every new administration get to put their own heroes on our currency?  Would a President Bernie Sanders – God forbid – decide to put Karl Marx on the $50 bill? Would a President Ocasio-Cortez – shudder – replace current portraits with a yucca plant or jicama to honor indigenous people?

What’s next? Kicking George Washington – another slave owner – off the $1 bill and the quarter and replacing him with someone more palatable to the current whims of the left? Then what about Thomas Jefferson?  Should Benjamin Franklin – a legendary philanderer – also lose his spot to appease the current #metoo movement? 

And how do we choose who takes their places?  Should it be by popular vote via texts and e-mails, like choosing winners on American Idol?

It’s just nonsense. It’s the same silliness responsible for renaming roads, schools, public buildings, and tearing down monuments using revisionist history to appease one group or another. Proponents feel virtuous that they’re correcting some historical evil, but they’re really just trying to edit history they don’t like; in time, others might want to rewrite their history, too.

If you dig deep enough – as I just did with Tubman – nobody’s squeaky clean.  Especially if you judge them only in the context of today’s culture of political correctness.           

The general public – black, white or whatever – isn’t obsessed with changing the portraits on our currency.  There’s no great groundswell of support for this. 

They just want our money to hold its value, something the left and Democrats don’t seem to care as much about.  Or, frankly, about really helping the larger black community with real jobs and education instead of making meaningless gestures like this and calling for reparations.  

The dust up over Tubman on the $20 bill – like the call for reparations – is purely political. And baseless. And patently disingenuous. It’s one more example of symbolism over substance. 

Another historical note: the first person killed by John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry was an innocent black man, who had the misfortune to be working on a train attacked by Brown. 

Remember, Harriet Tubman provided volunteers and helped in the planning for that.