That's fine...

... but this discussion has never addressed the actual root of the thread at all, which was the question of relativism.

As you said, the risk of following this course of action in our modern ultra-pc world is that finding fault with one means someone could find fault with all of our past leaders. Thus, placing Jackson in the dock and placing him on trial for the Indian Removal Act could open a flood-gate of criticisms of people like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and all our "larger-than-life" leadership.

Does that mean that leaving the matter unconsidered is more acceptable than risking the criticisms? Are the questions that liberals or anti-traditionalists in this nation might ask in regards to the conduct and policies of past Presidents too tough for their characters and documented actions to stand up against?

I think that even one "wrong" decision amidst a dozen "right" ones is enough to warrant at least the discussion, if nothing else. The very men we are talking about were HUMAN, not super-humans, and they placed themselves knowingly and willingly into the spotlight of history to achieve the goals they had set for themselves and the nation. This is part and parcel of the price that comes with being a President of the United States of America, and this is a lesson I learned from one F. Ryan many years ago.

I recall, back around 1997 or 1998, having a rather heated discussion with one F. Ryan in the middle of a blackjack pit about the expanding scope of the Ken Starr investigation. My argument, at the time, was that the President was still a human being and entitled to some degree of privacy in his life. If what he did (meaning to have an extra-marital affair) while "off the clock" fell outside of the scope of Starr's investigative authority, then why was it relevant to the nation in general?

Now, my position wasn't as morally ambivalent as it may seem from this short summary, but my arguments became mute anyway, when Ryan pointed out that upon taking the Oath of Office for the Presidency, the man opens his entire life, and every decision he makes in it, to the scrutiny of history, and that he must, morally and ethically, hold himself and those he appoints to key positions to a higher standard of conduct than any normal citizen could expect to be held to. This is a burden and a difficulty that tradition and history immovably place upon our Presidents, and as unfair or unjust as this burden may seem to some, it is unavoidable and irrefutable in its nature.

Ryan was right (as painful as that is to say...), and what he was right about is as applicable to Jackson as it is to Clinton. The legal and ethical culpability assigned to actions and policies that history has shown to be whole-heartedly supported by Jackson is, in my opinion, just as undeniable as that assigned to Clinton when he perjured himself while making his taped depositions about his conduct with Lewinsky.

If, by even the standards of the 1830's, Jackson's support of the Act was ethically or morally wrong (I'll leave "unconstitutional" out because only the Supreme Court can determine that), then I feel we are NOT wrong in discussing his suitability for a spot on our currency, and if that means that Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Franklin are also brought into question regarding their "suitability", then I trust to history and rational understanding to support their suitability based on measurable and specific evidence that can be used to support their position in history.

Why shouldn't we have tough standards for the respect and honor accorded by history to our past Presidents? If the standards that Ryan applies to Clinton and Carter and other Presidents that he doesn't think are worthy of respect or honor don't apply to those he did, where is the value or worth of his opinion at all? What would make him right and the rest of the liberal world wrong, were that the case?

I, for one, am confident in Washington's and Lincoln's characters to stand the test of scrutiny that might be applied now, or in the future, by those that would hope to discredit them for personal or political reasons. I think that Presidents and leaders that unanimously pass that test of scrutiny are the ones that are best suited for such highly-visible means of representation of our Country and its values and traditions... and not simply those that past traditions have placed on the bills for reasons that do not stand up to the scrutiny.

People like Pelosi, or Sean Penn, or Ward Churchill, or any other radical leftist bent on spouting their revisionism from the highest mountains in the land can point at people like Washington, Lincoln, Franklin, et al, and not make even the slightest dent in their reputations or legacy to anyone with even a mild understanding of actual historical fact. My contention is that THESE are the sorts of figures we should have representing our past in such widely circulated venues as the faces on our currency... not people who have made questionable or bad decisions while leading the nation, even if they have done good things as well. I'm no fan of moral equivalency as a justification for revisionist positions.