EDITORIAL: Don’t dump Hamilton from $10 bill — ditch Jackson instead

By now, you’ve probably heard that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is planning to put the image of an important woman on U.S. currency. The identity of the famous female has yet to be announced — cue the debate about who’s worthy of the honor — but we do know that she is supposed to replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill.

This is a cheap move.

No, we’re not talking about the decision to feature a woman on our currency. Such a switch is long overdue. (And, no, the annoying and inconvenient Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea dollar coins don’t count.) We’re talking about which bill this woman will appear on and who she’ll replace.

Mr. Hamilton is an indispensable figure in American history, the most important Founding Father who did not go on to become president. He is best-known for writing the Federalist Papers, the newspaper articles that advocated ratification of the Constitution, our founding document, and laid out the theories behind its structure. Even Thomas Jefferson, who didn’t exactly see eye to eye with Mr. Hamilton on a great many things, called the Federalist Papers “the best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written” — a claim that still holds true today.

Mr. Hamilton, who fought slavery, also served as our first secretary of the treasury and was instrumental in the United States having a strong, centralized financial system and an aggressive, trade-based economy.

If Mr. Lew wants to make a real statement, why doesn’t he put the woman’s face on the $20 bill instead of the ten-spot? The $20 bill is dispensed at virtually every ATM in the country. A change on the twenty would get noticed. And the $20 bill features the image of Andrew Jackson, who, as history shows, deserves to be removed more from the twenty than Mr. Hamilton does from the ten. Mr. Jackson fiercely opposed Mr. Hamilton’s successful economic model. He wanted nothing to do with paper money, and his targeting of the Second National Bank of the United States helped cause a nationwide financial panic in 1837 that many historians say was unmatched until the Great Depression.

Jon Meacham, who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Mr. Jackson, says the seventh president of the United States is such an interesting subject because he “represents the best of us and the worst of us.” That’s not quite the ringing endorsement you’re looking for when deciding whose face should appear on our money.

If Mr. Hamilton were alive to comment on the situation, perhaps he’d cite this passage from the Federalist Papers: “When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection.”

Mr. Lew says the change on our currency won’t happen until 2020. That gives him plenty of time “for more cool and sedate reflection.” It’s clear very little thought went into this decision.

The idea of replacing Mr. Hamilton on the $10 bill is as offensive and unjustified as ditching George Washington on the $1 bill or Abraham Lincoln on the five. If someone has to be removed from a bill, it’s Mr. Jackson.

That change to our currency would be, well, right on the money.