According to Kimberly Amadeo, “65 percent or around $580 billion U.S. bills in circulation are currently used outside the U.S. 75 percent consisting of $100 bills, 55 percent $50 bills, and 60 percent of $20 bills”, which have Andrew Jackson’s portrait on them. To foreign eyes abroad, President Jackson represents our country, our treasury, and our countries financial backbone or currency. Thanks to modern media and technology, Andrew Jackson’s checkered past has resurfaced and become common knowledge among most American’s and thus many of the consumers worldwide. If interpreted as part of our countries values, character, and intolerance it has now become a liability for a multitude of reasons. Through many decisions Andrew Jackson made, he no longer represents this country’s values, sense of equality, and ever-evolving principles displayed daily on the world stage.
In Jackson’s presidency, Native Americans and African Americans were majorly mistreated. Jackson did not give off a good first impression on the world. Towards the beginning of his presidency, Jackson believed that the Native American Indians could simply be mixed in with the white population and through integration, absorb American/English culture, values, practice, and religion. Think of it like this, Jackson basically just put all these people together expecting them to get along with the Native American Indian slowly converting to the settler way of life and culture. Unfortunately, the natives did not adjust well and pushed back through protest which he, in turn, released them to go back to their normal way of life, but a direction or process had been put in motion. When they went back to their regular life, Jackson as well as many others eventually feared them and viewed them as a perceived threat to the colonial way of life. In 1831, Jackson submitted a law to remove them and have them relocated but the law did not pass. Instead, he created a treaty authorizing the Indians to be removed and transported to a new place. Jackson had little concern for what the government or people said or wanted, and per his earned reputation, acted independently and on his own accord often taking action and implementing policies without permission or support. It was only two years after Jackson left Congress that the Indian Removal Act was completed in 1831. At this time, Jackson was also a proponent of slavery. He believed in order to pay off the country’s debt, slaves should be used. He had a reputation of being a harsh taskmaster and treated his slaves with tremendous cruelty. According to Bill John Baker, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, “In one notorious incident, he offered a $50 reward for the return of an escaped slave - and ‘$10 for every 100 lashes a person will give to the amount of $300’”. 50 dollars then is worth 700 dollars today. Jackson did not properly represent equality, one of the cornerstones of the constitution offering that everyone is created equal. Because this was one of the larger things, he ‘accomplished’, Jackson made well known bad impressions to the rest of the world.
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Again, Jackson did not represent equality. Throughout the process of Jackson’s campaign, he promised to give valuable political positions to key supporters. “On the night of his inauguration, office-seekers so crowded the White House that the party devolved into a near riot”, - stated by ‘Infamous Things Jackson Did That Proves He Was a Terrible President’ (Thane). Jackson gave treasured political spots to friends in the end. If the president is going to make such immature, secretive, and unequal decisions, why would we want him to represent the U.S. on the $20 dollar bill?
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