Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Why It Was Always Going to Be Tubman on Our Money
Why It Was Always Going to Be Tubman on Our Money
Jan 9, 2026 5:49 AM

Last Summer I predicted that Harriet Tubman would be replacing Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill. I was almost right. She’ll be replacing Andrew Jackson.

The U.S. Treasury announced last year that the $10 bill is the next paper currency scheduled for a major redesign — a process that takes years because of the anti-counterfeiting technology involved — and will feature a “notable woman.”

The new ten will be unveiled in 2020, the 100th anniversary of the passage of the nineteenth amendment, which gave women the right to vote. As the Treasury explained, “The passage of the nineteenth amendment granted women their right to fully participate in the system our country was founded on—a government by the people, a democracy.”

In a post last June I wrote: “I’m almost certain they already know who Treasury is going to choose: It’s going to beHarriet Tubman.” Instead, it was Jackson who got demoted to the back of the currency while Tubman will take his placeon the front.

I think the Treasury made the right decision. As the first Treasury secretary, Hamilton deserved to stick around on the $10 (leaders of the women’s suffragemovement will be featured on the other side). But it was time for a woman to join the men on our money and, based on the criteria used for consideration, Tubman is a solid choice. She was not only an abolitionist, she served inthe Civil War as a Union spy and became the only woman during that conflict to lead men into a battle.

Unfortunately, fans of Tubman will have to wait awhile longer to see her new portrait: the $20 isn’t scheduled for a redesign until 2030.

In the meantime, here was my reasoning from last year on why Tubman was all but inevitable based on the Treasury’scriteria for a “noble woman”candidate:

She will be dead, and pro-democracy — A primary criteria for getting your face on America’s money is that you have to be dead. Plenty of famous women meet that criteria, of course, but that’s the first hurdle. The second one sets a higher bar. As the Treasury website notes:

Democracy is the theme for the next redesigned series and the Secretary will select a woman recognized by the public who was a champion for democracy in the United States. The person should be iconic and have made a significant contribution to — or impact on — protecting the freedoms on which our nation was founded.

That requirement narrows the field considerably.

She will have name recognition — If you didn’t hear her name mentioned in history class in junior high, you likely won’t see her name linked to the new ten.

She will not be Susan B. Anthony — Anthony seems like she would be the obvious choice, considering her connection to the 19thAmendment. And she has plenty of champions (such as Dominic Bouck, O.P. at First Things) who would love to see her share the bill with Alexander Hamilton. But there is also an obvious reason it won’t be Anthony: she was already on the dollar.

The Susan B. Anthony dollar was a dollar coin minted from 1979 to 1981 and again in 1999. The public hated it—not Anthony, just the coin (which was too similar in size to the quarter). But Anthony had her shot. The Treasury Department is not going to waste this historic opportunity to simply shift Anthony’s visage from a coin to a paper bill.

She will be African American — To date, only two women have appeared on U.S. paper currency. One was white (Martha Washington) and the other was Native American (Pocahontas). It’s time for an African-American woman.

In light of those tentative requirements, the field is narrowed to only three candidates: Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth.

Parks has been called the “mother of the civil rights movement” because of her role in the Montgomery bus boycott. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993, was presented the Medal of Freedom Award by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999, and after her death on October 24, 2005, Congress approved a resolution allowing her body to lie in honor in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. She’s a solid contender, but she’s too current a figure.

At the time of the currency unveiling, Parks will have been gone from this life for 15 years. Assuming that America will continue to exist and that Bitcoin won’t replace paper money, there will be plenty of opportunities in the future to honor Parks by putting her on our money.

That leaves only Tubman and Truth.

Both Tubman and Truth were former slaves who became abolitionists and later fought for women’s suffrage alongside Susan B. Anthony. Both are the very models of “inclusive democracy”, which make both the primary contenders for placement on the new ten.

I could have titled this article “Why Sojourner Truth Will Be on the $10 Bill”—and I almost did. If Truth were chosen over Tubman it’d be only a mild surprise. But Tubman gains a slight advantage because of her name recognition.

Tubman is better known because her role in the abolition movement is slightly more impressive. Truth gained prominence mainly as a speaker while Tubman was active in helping slaves escape to freedom. The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison even dubbed Tubman “Moses” because of the way she led her people out of bondage.

For these reasons, Harriet Tubman will be the one sharing space on the new ten with Alexander Hamilton, the only Founding Father on our currency who never owned slaves.

How sure am I this will be Treasurer Lew’s choice? Almost certain. If I were a betting man I’d bet you a $10 it’ll be Tubman.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
‘Do you, or have you ever, belonged to the Boston Tea Party?’
Keith Lambert has a riveting first-hand account at his new blog about Cold War Communist informant Herb Philbrick. Some key excerpts: Back in the 1980’s I was more interested in dating his daughter than I was in learning about the man she called her father. Nevertheless because of his poor night vision my mother-in-law to be Shirley pulled me aside and asked me to drive the two of them to Boston for an appearance of Herb’s on a locally syndicated...
5 Facts About Fatherhood In The United States For Father’s Day
There are almost 2 million single dads raising kids in the U.S.About 24 million children do not live with their biological father.In 1965, dads spent about 2 1/2 hours a day with their child; today, dads spend about 6 1/2 hours with their child daily.70% of Americans believe that a father’s absence from the home is the most significant problem facing our country today.Even in high crime neighborhoods, 90% of children from stable 2 parent homes where the father is...
We Are All The Problem
rades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word– Man” ― George Orwell, Animal Farm We are clearly at a point where we are all to be treated as criminals. Why? Because it’s politically incorrect to name the actual criminals. If a terrorist is fueled by a fundamentalist vision of his religion, such as the Tsarnaev brothers, we are told that their radical roots are “mysterious” or religion wasn’t even a factor in...
Conservatism as Gratitude
Yuval Levin, one of the brightest minds in America, was recently awarded the 2013 Bradley Prize for his work in advancing the cause of limited government. In his remarks on accepting the prize, Levin explains the connection between conservatism and the virtue of gratitude: To my mind, conservatism is gratitude. Conservatives tend to begin from gratitude for what is good and what works in our society and then strive to build on it, while liberals tend to begin from outrage...
A Conservative Case for Prison Reform
Conservatives known for being tough on crime, says Richard A. Viguerie,should now be equally tough on failed, too-expensive criminal programs. They should demand more cost-effective approaches that enhance public safety and the well-being of all Americans — including prisoners: Conservativeshould recognize that the entire criminal justice system is another government spending program fraught with the issues that plague all government programs. Criminal justice should be subject to the same level of skepticism and scrutiny that we apply to any other...
Intellectual Honesty Overcomes Radical Agendas
An apocryphal quote often (incorrectly it seems) attributed to John Maynard Keynes goes something like, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Eliot Ness, as portrayed by Kevin Costner in The Untouchables, answers a reporter’s question about the lawman’s plans once Prohibition is repealed: “I think I’ll have a drink.” The point of these quotations, though fictional, is to draw attention to the virtue of intellectual honesty. For real-world, verifiable intellectual honesty one can...
Autocam Takes Battle Against HHS Mandate to the Sixth Circuit
On Tuesday June 11, Autocam Corporation went before the U.S. Court of Appeals 6th Circuit Court in Cincinnati to argue against the enforcement of the Health and Human Services birth control mandate. President and CEO of Autocam and Autocam Medical, John Kennedy, says that “the law forces some employers to participate in what they believe is intrinsic evil.” But his request for an injunction had been denied by the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan. A spokespersonfrom...
I Pity The Fool Who Doesn’t Shop the Acton Audio Fire Sale
Say, did you hear about the big Acton University Audio Fire Sale that’s going on now in the Acton Institute’s Digital Downloads Store? 68 presentations from Acton University 2012 have been marked down a full seventy-five percent, giving you access to an amazing range of talks on topics ranging from Christian Anthropology to Corruption, from Abraham Kuyper toAlexandrSolzhenitsyn, from Biblical Foundations of Freedom to Tensions in Modern Conservatism, all for just fifty cents per lecture! New to Acton and wondering...
Narcissism and the Minimum Wage Are Destroying Opportunities
Once upon a time, America was a country where a young adult would jump at an opportunity to learn new skills so that he or she could increase their options later. They were grateful. Those days are over thanks to a new ruling against unpaid internships. Thanks to an America that fertilizes Millennial narcissism in new bined with the federal government undermining how employers develop their employees with minimum wage laws, everyone is worse off in the long run. Someone...
EVACUATE THE SCHOOLCHILDREN! It’s a FIRE SALE!
Acton’s enormously exciting FIRE SALE continues in the Acton Audio Store! We’ve marked down prices on our 2012 Acton University audio by SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT! Talks by luminaries such as Michael Novak, Eric Metaxas and Arthur Brooks are available for the low, low price of fifty cents! You’d have to be crazy not to check it out! AND… scene. ...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved