How Politics Affected Early U.S. Coinage Designs

Very early on in the history of the constitutional United States there were to major political parties, the first of the two was the Democratic-Republicans and the second was the Federalists. The Federalists wanted an effigy of the president on the coins but the Democratic-Republicans wanted an effigy of Liberty with flowing hair. The effigy of Liberty narrowly got approved by three votes, thus making the designs of our earliest United States coins have Liberty with flowing hair. A myth that Washington did not want to be on coins is clearly not the truth, when the first U.S. election came around not a single vote was against Washington. Clearly, if Washington did not want to be on the coinage of the young government his wish would have been granted by far more than the small amount of three votes that made the design show what it showed for many, many years.

In the middle of the 1790s, the mint got a new engraver named Robert Scott to fill in the vital office of engraving the hubs, which in turn would be used to make the dies which would be used for the nations coinage. The engraver, Robert Scott, along with two directors which served during the same time period while he was in office were Federalists which strongly opposed the Democratic-Republicans view.Because the Federalists employed at the mint were strongly opposed to flowing hair being shown on the nations coinage, they quickly changed Lady Libertys portrait and added a hair tie also known as a filet to the back of Libertys hair to keep it from flowing and removed the liberty cap to form a design which would appeal Federalists much better than the earlier designs which had been on the coinage of the U.S. Mint.

In 1793 the United States suspended payments to France on the loan that had been made during and to help fund the American Revolution. France decided to counter this and soon France started seizing United States ships. In 1798 Robert Scott decided to make a stern political statement by placing the arrows in the eagle's left claw of the hubs for silver coinage, the one that the eagle was looking at, stating that America was ready for war. While some people say that this was accidental, Robert Scott paid meticulous attention to detail, so much that there was no way that he could have made such an obvious but yet hidden blunder. Later that year, the United States started the Quasi War against the French and Robert Scott, through the eagle on the reverse of silver coinage surely and clearly expressed what the U.S. was thinking at that time period in regards to France. Several years later, the reverse design was subsequently changed showing a more realistic arrow with the arrows in his right talons and an olive branch in his left representing peace, this design was also by Robert Scott and showed that he clearly understood which position the arrows and olive branch should be in.

Even in the mid twentieth century one can find examples of politically motivated changes on coin designs. Democrat Franklin Roosevelt was placed on the dimes shortly after his death in office. Shortly after his assassination, Democrat John F Kennedy replaced Benjamin Franklin on the half dollar. Not to be outdone by the Democrats, the Republicans placed Dwight D. Eisenhower on the largest coins in circulation at the time, the large dollar coins.

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