I sympathize with the call to replace Andrew Jackson's image on the $20 bill with the face of a figure from American history embodying substantially more moral fiber, like Harriet Tubman, one of the Underground Railroad's most fearless, energetic and successful conductors, who was selected to replace Old Hickory during a recent unofficial popular vote.
Jackson built his fortune as a slave trader and paid generous bounties to have his runaway slaves captured and whipped - in one case, 300 times - eventually amassing enough capital to assemble a cotton plantation powered by more than 150 slaves of his own. After being elected the nation's seventh president, Jackson instituted what became known as the Spoils System, awarding government jobs and contracts to political cronies, and then supported, signed and enforced the Indian Removal Act, which forced thousands of Cherokees and members of other eastern tribes to leave their ancestral lands and relocate in what is now Oklahoma.
But there's a new symbolic war being waged against Jackson that to me, doesn't quite float: A protest over the Navy naming a recently commissioned ship the USS Jackson in honor of Mississippi's capital city. Of the class of ships to which the USS Jackson belongs, 15 of 16 completed or under construction are named after U.S. cities - the USS Gabrielle Giffords, honoring the former Arizona congresswoman who survived a 2011 assassination attempt, being the exception.
True, Jackson, Mississippi, was named after Andrew Jackson back in 1821, when Old Hickory was a U.S. Army general. If the city had kept its original name, the USS LeFleur's Bluff may have been commissioned last week instead of the USS Jackson, in all likelihood avoiding the current flareup over its name.
I could see protesting the name of the ship if it, like nuclear powered aircraft carriers, had been directly named for a U.S. president, and become the USS Andrew Jackson. But if ships named after cities named after the 12 slave-holding presidents are to be eliminated from consideration, there should never be a USS Washington, a USS Madison, a USS Jefferson City or a USS Tyler, among others.
The new series of Littoral Combat Ships that the USS Jackson belongs to - littoral literally being a fancy word for coastal - should bring pride to any town they are named after. The futuristic-looking, tri-hulled, 417-foot long vessels travel at speeds approaching 50 miles per hour and can operate in water only 15 feet deep.
That said, I do have one major beef with LCS names.
One of the new ships is named the USS Charleston - in honor of the other one.