My gosh, Ryan...

Can we please just try to keep this rational, if we are going to keep talking about it at all?

Do I think S P Chase a suitable candidate for a face on our currency? After working in a casino for decades, and having very rich people throw American bills at you for hours on end, can you claim to ever have SEEN, let alone touched or used, any bill larger than a $100? No, because anything larger than a $100 is kept out of general circulation and is used exclusively by the Fed Reserve between member banks. Were that not the case, the faces on those notes wouldn't make such fine bar-room trivia, would it?

However, just to answer your question... NO, I do not think any of the faces that grace our largest Reserve notes are suitable candidates either, especially Wilson and Madison, any more than I think Jackson or Grant should be on a bill.

I have answered the question, but it is a moot point, because you have asserted that ALL candidates suffer from some kind of immoral or unethical flaw in their histories or personalities which makes them ALL unacceptable candidates for a place on our bills. I say you have asserted this because I tried my damnedest to make the point that I wasn't intending to be "hyper-scrupulous" in my observations about our past Presidents. I went out of my way to defend Jefferson's glaring contradiction concerning slavery; I left Washington out of my equation intentionally, not because I feel he is special or above reproach but because his position carried no contradiction and was a product and result of living in an entirely different age; I never thought to question Lincoln's un-Constitutional actions as President during the Civil War as reason to replace him on the $5; and I feel both Hamilton and Franklin, though neither were Presidents, are both exemplary examples of service and patriotism.

I say it again... YOU are the one arguing that, if we but scratch the veneer hard enough, ALL candidates for a spot on our money (President or not) will show some illicit sin from their past that will refute or remove their suitability.

All I did was make the point that Jackson's signing into law and whole-hearted support of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was a calculated action in the face of clear contemporary concerns about its moral and ethical value. Nowhere in that point was I forcing modern moral standards on the man... I didn't quote modern Indian tribal groups with an historical ax to grind, nor did I cite revisionist liberals who merely want to besmirch the name of a past conservative American leader. I stated nothing but facts that were every bit as available to someone in 1830 as they are to us today, and if that weren't the case, then why is it that the Cherokee tribes of Georgia managed to file lawsuit after lawsuit to delay their "removal" until the last? They took their Constitutional case as high as it could go, but the government (including Jackson) wouldn't listen.

I'm not judging Jackson by the standards of 2010... I'm doing it by the standards of a very vocal minority in 1830, and I think that is a perfectly fair position to take. Just because slavery was allowed under US law prior to 1865 doesn't mean that many millions of people for decades before that didn't see the immoral nature of the institution... otherwise, there wouldn't have been an abolitionist movement as far back as 1780.

I do believe in moral absolutes, yes. There are certain things in this life that are simply "understood" to be wrong, evil or immoral. I'll say it again... I do believe in moral absolutes.

I also believe that human understanding of moral absolutes has changed over the ages, and not everyone alive before me understood these absolutes as I understand them now. Thus, it is unjust of me to force my perspective on morality onto someone who A) can't defend their own position because they are long, long dead and B) have a different understanding of right and wrong than I do.

Had every single person involved in the process of making the Indian Removal Act of 1830 thought the idea just and fair (I'll even ignore the Indian's legal claims, if that makes me seem more "objective" to you), then I would have no legitimate argument for questioning Jackson's place on the $20... or any other currency you care to mention. This, however, is NOT the case. In fact, with only a cursory search of the Library of Congress records on Congressional debates, I found a rather eloquent one HERE made by a certain Representative Storrs, member of the "House Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union" who said that upon reviewing the bill and, "... finding a purpose so unjust to these people, and so mischievous to the reputation of the Country, lurking under it, I cannot give it my countenance or support." This debate tells me that there were people, contemporary with the passage of the bill, that questioned its morality and/or ethical nature and that means that no one involved, Jackson included, wasn't aware of the possibility that the bill was immoral or unethical.

THAT is my "hard on" against Jackson. I feel I have provided clear and certain evidence that an honest choice was available to everyone involved in the passage of the bill... a choice that fell between just and "unjust" purpose, the latter being seen as "mischievous to the reputation of the Country" by the Hon. Mr. Storrs, which is EXACTLY what we are arguing about here, isn't it? Was the passage and signing of this bill "mischievous to the reputation" of those that supported it? I think Mr. Storrs was right... this was a bad bill, and those that supported it were wrong both THEN and NOW.

You have (seemingly) taken the position that no culpability can be assigned to the passage of this law because those responsible didn't see their actions as "wrong". While I agree that one must know one is doing wrong to be culpable or morally/ethically responsible for the results of said actions, you have not shown me that Jackson was free of this understanding or knowledge. Until you can show me that he (and those others that supported and enacted the Act) had no other choices available to them to solve the problems presented by the Indians remaining in the east on lands promised them by ratified US treaty and established legal possession, then I really don't see the point in continuing the discussion any further.

However, we seemingly agree that there are other, BETTER choices for faces on our currency than Grant, Wilson, Cleveland and Chase (even if we still disagree on Jackson), so there isn't much need to keep griping at each other, is there?