WHY DON'T WE HAVE A $25 BILL?

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V22 2019 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 22, Number 47, November 24, 2019, Article 23

A National Review article by Deroy Murdock published November 21, 2019 advocates for putting Harriet Tubman on a new $25 bill. -Editor

... some people want Andrew Jackson to stay on the $20 bill. While he is vilified these days for cruelly forcing some 20,000 Cherokee Indians down the deadly Trail of Tears, he also was the brilliant commander of the Battle of New Orleans, which kept Great Britain from corking the Mississippi River during the War of 1812. Had Jackson, the Free Men of Color, and his other racially integrated troops surrendered, Americans today might play cricket rather than baseball.

Most notoriously, the father of the modern Democratic party owned slaves. But if having at least one slave, even briefly, bars one’s face from U.S. currency, then it’s time to pry George Washington from the $1 bill, Thomas Jefferson from the $2, Ulysses S. Grant from the $50, and Ben Franklin from the Benjamin.

“I think Harriet Tubman is fantastic,” President Trump has said. “But I would love to leave Andrew Jackson or see if we can maybe come up with another denomination.”

Either Trump could upset Jackson supporters or disappoint Tubman fans. But rather than either/or, why not satisfy both?

Jackson should remain on the $20. And Tubman should stand on her own on a brand-new bill: The $25.

The $25 Tubman note “is a very reasonable compromise,” Lawrence W. Reed, president emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education, told me.

So why is it that we have a $20 bill instead of a $25 bill, anyway? We have quarter dollars, but no quarter union. It's always bothered my anal retentive math and engineering soul that we divide the dollar in fourths but divide the hundred in fifths. What's up with that?

These things are often an accident of history, but when you dig into it sometimes there's a more practical explanation. Could it be that a $25 gold coin would have just been too large and heavy for practical use? Congress decides denominations, so everything we use today has been directed so by law. But has anyone researched just why lawmakers decided on a 20 vs. a 25?

We do indeed have (or rather "had") a 20 cent coin, but it was a short-lived failure because it was so close in size and denomination to the quarter. A new $25 note could meet the same fate, being so close to the $20. Interesting proposition, though. Regardless of the design, what do people think of the merits of a $25 bill? -Editor

To read the complete article, see:
Put Harriet Tubman on a New $25 Bill (https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/put-harriet-tubman-on-a-new-25-bill/)