Andrew Jackson is not being kicked off the $20 bill. First, we’re just being more conscientious about who we honor. Second, his image will stay on all $20 bills that it’s currently on. It’s only new bills that won’t have his image on the front.

Failed presidential candidate Ben Carson apparently referred to Andrew Jackson as being “kicked off of the $20 bill”, to make room for Harriet Tubman.

I never gave Jackson much thought. So I read a bit. Jackson was just another brutal soldier. I read about his cruelty in the War of 1812. He threw out a treaty with the Creek Indians and imposed a much harsher one.

Don’t get me wrong. He was caught up in his times and his outlook. Like everyone else, he mixed his emotions with his rationality with mixed results. No doubt he did his best as soldier, officer and president, with both good and bad experiences and outcomes.

Carson’s point was that Jackson was the last president to eliminate the national debt and that was quite a feat. But it turns out it wasn’t. The next year the same debt reappeared. The following year, his last year in office, 1837, the debt grew ten-fold.

Paying it off in 1835 wasn’t very difficult. The economy was booming and the government was selling off land. And with Jackson’s subsequent actions and failures to act, a couple of years later his administration was presiding over the Panic of 1837. Like our own worst-president-ever George Bush, Jackson’s eight years in office ended with economic catastrophe. In each of the two years that followed, the ballooned debt grew by another factor of 3.

And for the Cherokee in Georgia, things got bad. Jackson pursued a policy of buying land in the west and moving Indians there from the South, where the Cherokee lived. Jackson negotiated with some Cherokee who were not Cherokee leaders. The Cherokee thought the treaty was illegitimate, but Jackson’s successor, Van Buren, sent troops to move the Indians. This was the “Trail of Tears” on which a quarter of them perished.

What happened is complex. Of the thousands of native Americans who died, each one had a life, loved ones, memories of growing up in the south with their families and communities, experiences of the land and rivers and lakes, hopes and dreams, lessons and achievements. They were brutally removed from their homes by American soldiers who coldly watched them perish on their forced march. We should have removed Jackson’s image long ago.

Harriet Tubman, on the other hand. was a Civil War hero and a humanitarian. Later in life she fought for the right for women to vote. The article concludes: “After she died in 1913, she became an icon of American courage and freedom.”

The meaning we associate with the image of Jackson on the $20 bill is much less complex. Personally, I didn’t really care. Now that I know his history, I’m happy to have him replaced.

But he’s not being kicked off. He’s long gone. We’re just being conscientious about our role models.

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