6/19/2015
By Charles Payne, CEO & Principal Analyst

Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew made it official. A woman will replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill. Initially, I was confused as there had been a movement to remove Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill, with a recent poll of 600,000 that overwhelmingly chose Harriett Tubman, an escaped slave and conductor of the Underground Railroad.

What the heck???

When I was growing up in Harlem, Hamilton Grange was just a couple blocks away. He was tucked away in obscurity surrounded by a large decaying ghetto. 

Go figure…we are talking about a founding father who was the architect of our economic system.

Through the Federalist Papers, Hamilton helped sell the proposed Constitution and championed it through the ratification phase. Hamilton was our first secretary of Treasury. His politics and personal life wasn’t perfect. Why would he be the target of this non-stop effort of social justice boggles the mind.

A poor immigrant from the Caribbean island of Nevis, Hamilton helped erect foundations that catapulted the United Sates to the greatest nation in the world.

Changing the face of the ten-dollar bill will not change history. In fact, we shouldn’t want to change history.  

Let’s put a woman on the $25 bill or on the $40 bill, but let’s stop this farce of litigating the past and dismissing accomplishments by great, but flawed men.

Note:  Martha Washington graced the ‘One Silver Dollar’ note up to 1890.

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Charles Payne
Wall Street Strategies

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