This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
I've been asked to look at the article with the possibility of FA. I don't think it's that far off. I will have some specific comments this week. But let me lead off with:
Footnote #4 Ford needs page nos. Hoppyh ( talk) 13:08, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Footnote #6 Colt needs page nos. Hoppyh ( talk) 13:08, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Footnote #12 (Wilson, p. 254) has no corresponding source. Hoppyh ( talk) 13:13, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
Footnote #24 Wilts needs page nos. Hoppyh ( talk) 18:57, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Footnote #41 Bailey has no corresponding source. Hoppyh ( talk) 12:58, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Footnote #42 Bartlett is lacking page nos. Hoppyh ( talk) 13:04, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Footnote #51 Marszalek may need page nos. Hoppyh ( talk) 19:11, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Footnote #53 Marszalek - ditto. Hoppyh ( talk) 19:16, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Footnote #54 (2) Phillips has no corresponding source. Hoppyh ( talk) 19:18, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Footnote #68 Cheek needs p. nos. Hoppyh ( talk) 19:41, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
Footnote #105 von Holst needs the name of the publisher. Hoppyh ( talk) 15:08, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
The article previously said, "Calhoun differed from Jefferson and Madison in explicitly arguing for a state's right to secede from the Union, . . . ." Display name 99 changed "explicitly" to "openly". I changed it back, saying, "'openly' implies J & M argued for secession covertly, rather than implicitly;" and Display name 99 re-reverted it, saying, "Jefferson drafted a threat for Kentucky or Virginia to secede, but did not publish it." I objected to this violation of WP:BRD on Dn99's talk page, and invited Dn99 to justify her or his revision on the article's Talk page. Dn99 responded, in pertinent part, as follows:
The original reason for a change, as recommended in the FA review, was to remove use of the word "explicitly" in two consecutive sentences. I chose to replace it with "openly". Jefferson included a secession threat in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, thereby seeming to accept it as a last resort. However, he eventually took it out, meaning that, while he did technically support nullification, he did not loudly and freely support total withdrawal from the Union in the way that Calhoun did. As a source example, please see an article here.
I am transferring the discussion to this page, so that others interested in the article can contribute if they like.
As I said when I first reverted Dn99's revision, to say that "Calhoun differed from Jefferson and Madison in openly arguing for a state's right to secede from the Union, . . . " is to imply that both Jefferson and Madison covertly or privately argued for such a right. Dn99 suggests (citing a journalist's blog, which I do not regard as a reliable source) that Jefferson did so argue. If Jefferson asserted such a right in a draft resolution, submitted to the legislature of Kentucky, I'd argue that he thereby argued openly and explicitly (albeit anonymously at the time). As far as I'm aware, Madison never advocated a right of secession, whether openly or, as Dn99's version suggests, covertly. The sentence, therefore, as Dn99 has it, appears to be incorrect, as to both Jefferson and Madison.
On the other hand, it is arguable, and indeed has often been argued, that both men's arguments imply a right of secession, regardless of what either may have said privately (or even publicly) on the subject.
The appearance of the word explicitly twice in as many sentences can surely be avoided without the introduction of an untrue implication.
Incidentally, I have also to take issue with Dn99's assertion that Calhoun "loudly and freely support[ed] total withdrawal from the Union". Calhoun emphatically maintained the States' right to withdraw from the Union, but he never supported such withdrawal. In fact, no man in history labored harder to prevent that calamity. That is a vital fact about Calhoun, which anybody who undertakes to edit this article ought to appreciate. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 21:19, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
" Minority rights", in the sense of the current usage of the phrase, is not what is intended here. I think this needs to be made clear right from the opening paragraph of the lead and not left until later on. Also, it's stated later in the article that the US "seized control of western Canada", but the Battle of the Thames and other such events did not take place in Western Canada as it is today defined; they took place in what is today Southern Ontario. — Diannaa ( talk) 22:28, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
Display name 99 recently (in an edit summary) expressed some reservations about citing the official Senate biography of Calhoun so much. I haven't done more than skim the Senate biography, but it appears to be reliable (it's available in a PDF version, with end-notes). It does, however, rely fairly heavily (though not exclusively, and maybe not even principally) on secondary sources, and so is arguably a tertiary source, and not the best authority. (See WP:PSTS.) On-line sources are attractive, both because they are easy for readers to check, and because they don't require editors to get up from the computer; but those are not reasons for preferring them over printed sources. Wiltse, though perhaps a bit dated by now, remains the leading secondary source on Calhoun, and, unless later scholarship has found him to be in error (something I'm not aware of in any case, but which may have happened), ought to be our chief source. (I will gratuitously note here that I regard Capers's book as a hatchet job, not to be relied on for anything, except as an example of the hostility that has tainted much writing on Calhoun.) In short, I would encourage Dn99 to continue making judicious use of the Senate biography, but not to feel any obligation to use it in preference to printed sources.
I again express my appreciation, despite some disagreements, for all the work Dn99 has put into the improvement of this article. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 20:54, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
The Princeton Library's web site offers an image of a life mask of Calhoun. I once posted it on this Talk page (in a discussion now archived), but it was deleted because I couldn't prove that it wasn't subject to copyright. A different picture of Calhoun's life mask was published in 1894, in Laurence Hutton, Portraits in Plaster: From the Collection of Laurence Hutton (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1894), at p. 259. I have extracted that photograph, which is old enough to be free of copyright restrictions, and uploaded it to the commons. The quality of the image unfortunately isn't especially good, but it's there if anybody wants to include it in the article.
I am not at all sure that both photographs depict the same mask, though both purport to represent a life mask of Calhoun, taken by Clark Mills, and in Laurence Hutton's collection; and both, in my opinion, look like Calhoun. The apparent differences may result merely from differences in angle and lighting. (One can scarcely imagine anybody's submitting twice to the onerous process of taking a whole-head life mask.) J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 18:49, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
By the way, the date given in Hutton's book for the mask pictured here is 1844 (see p. 254), in which year, if memory serves, Calhoun almost ran for president. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 20:50, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
In the section, "Nullification", Calhoun was quoted as referring to "the Federal Government, sustained by its delegated and unlimited authority". Because Calhoun consistently argued that the authority of the federal government was limited, I suspected an error. The source given for the quotation, a transcription of the speech on the web site of the University of Missouri at St. Louis, does indeed give "unlimited authority", but it is in error. Compare John C. Calhoun, Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun, ed. Ross M. Lence (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1992), p. 429. ; and John C. Calhoun, Speeches of John C. Calhoun: Delivered in the Congress of the United States from 1811 to the Present Time (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1843), p. 81.
I have written to the address given on the UMSL site, calling the proprietors' attention to the error, and I have corrected it here. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 15:14, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
I have also replaced the citation to the UMSL site with the two given above. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 16:07, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
It looks like this was brought up before, but the phrase "minority rights", which is in the first sentence following "...his strong defense of slavery...", seems like a big, big source of potential confusion. The phrase has multiple established meanings, and a look at the minority rights article should demonstrate that the specific meaning is far from obvious to a reader who isn't already familiar with the topic. Clarifying that Calhoun was discussing a political minority would go a long way to correcting this. As a tentative suggestion, how about replacing the phrase with 'rights of political minorities', at least in the first use in the lead? Grayfell ( talk) 23:53, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
References
The "Texas" section is based almost entirely on 1000 word, non-sourced, "Profiles of the Presidents". Calhoun, to my knowledge, was never a US president.
How is it that this skimpy section appears on an article that just received a "good" designation?
Most troubling, the material in the section are not supported by the "online" summary. It's more than just cherry picking sentences.
This article is supposed to be a product based on secondary research, using mainstream sources and historians.
This is deplorable.
-- 36hourblock ( talk) 21:56, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
I noticed that Richard Hofstadter is quoted and referenced a number of times in this article (a telling reflection on the anonymous author's influences) and I just wanted to ask if it would be right and pertinent to emphasize the fact that Hofstadter was all his life a radical left-winger and a member of the Communist Youth and 'American' Communist party? To quote 'Historian' (an appeal to authority) without any reference to the very extreme views this 'historian' projected upon his work I find to be rather misleading, especially when he authoritatively states or supposes Calhoun's views and the motivations behind these - A fundamental aspect of marxist philosophy is that economic causes are the root for absolutely everything, he imposes this belief of his own upon Calhoun in various ways, for example the marxist trope and depiction of all Southern antebellum life as a three-tiered society with the ignorant and immoral ignobles (Southern poor whites ['Poor' seems to be a broad and vague description here]), the noble victims (Black slaves) and the Capitalist Aristocratic Fatcats (Southern Plantation owners) I find to be absolute revisionism and by no means necessarily present in what writings and details we have recorded contemporaneously.
My point being that the revisionist and activist northern historians of the 40s-present should not be quoted and treated as unbiased and impartial actors in these articles, especially where they are writing about Southern antebellum life, Civil War topics, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Segregation etc., all of which are favorite topics of theirs.
- Eli — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.30.23 ( talk) 16:39, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
This concept is repeated in the article and creates an unintended black humor. Calhoun certainly did not advocate minority rights, except when the minority was a white minority (as a geographical group). All those statements need redrafting. ( PeacePeace ( talk) 01:55, 13 November 2016 (UTC))
@@ Jdcrutch: - I changed the lead photo mostly in concurrence with @ Lx 121:'s comments at Talk:Andrew Jackson re:portrait vs. daguerreotype. This is the most accurate representation we have as Calhoun as it is an actual photo of the man himself... it shows us exactly what he looked like, not someone's artistic representation of him. More comments here welcome. Connormah ( talk) 23:12, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
comment: in biography articles (among others), photographs of the subject take precedence over non-photographic artworks; as per historical accurate & NPOV. the article is about the person not the painting.
there are several photographs of this person to choose from; personally i think the brady portrait is rather good...
Lx 121 ( talk) 23:42, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
you are engaging in sophistry in your arguments; here is a breakdown of what is wrong with them:
1. a photographic image is inherently more accurate than a painting or drawing.
that has not been "debunked".
2. your arguement that "The picture in question isn't in the lede per se" is BULLSHIT
it is the leading image on the article.
if you are arguing that the infobox should be moved down, so that we can have a "real" lede image, you need to take that one up with wp:style & co.
3. it is irrelevant WHEN the photo was taken, so long as it is an ACCURATE LIKENESS OF THE PERSON.
we also have at least one other, earlier photo to choose from, if you prefer?
4. it is not our job to "capture the spirit of the man".
that is NNPOV.
it is our job to show what the subject, the person, REALLY LOOKED LIKE.
ALL OF THIS falls under wp:accuracy & wp:npov
5. the man was an active politician & UNITED STATES SENATOR when the brady photo was taken; so even if i agreed with your hypothesis, which i do not, i think that would still qualify as "during his career".
& actually
6. we do use pictures of people taken after they leave office, or after "the height of their achievements".
if you want examples, just ask for them; it will be a VERY long list...
Lx 121 ( talk) 09:21, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
btw: if you look in the commonscat for him, we have a bunch of photos to choose from. assuming they are all correctly identified.
it also looks very much like the dating-chronology of the photos needs correcting/checking on some of them; in that the subject's apparent & relative age is inconsistent with the dates given, across the range of images.
Lx 121 ( talk) 09:42, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Wehwalt, Hoppyh, Maunus, Rjensen, Jdcrutch, and Lingzhi:
Greetings. I wish to renominate John C. Calhoun as an FAC. I have pinged each of you because you were major contributors to the article and were involved in the unsuccessful attempt to get it promoted when it was first nominated as an FAC in 2016. I have continued editing and monitoring the article over the last several months, and believe it's time we gave this another try. Please do not feel obligated to involve yourselves this time. I am pinging each of you because I believe you deserve notification or in case you would like to participate, and especially if there are any potential issues that you wish to identify before I nominate the article.
Probably the biggest issue in gaining consensus last time was the citations. We ended the review with a total of 6 citations without page numbers. We are now down to just two. There are no more direct quotes without page citations.
Since the last review, some expansion of various sections has taken place. Most notably, the section "Secretary of State" has been expanded significantly. The author of most of that expanded text-a user by the name of 36hourblock, has a citation style that involves the heavy use of quotes. I have removed those which I consider to be excessive. Mainly, the ones that I have taken out are quotes about things that have little to do with Calhoun or instead merely repeat or rephrase the text while adding no new perspectives or information-just more words and clutter. I have left many quotations in the article, however, which I believe offer important perspectives or details. One potential problem that I see is that it leads to inconsistency in the citation style. Please note that 36hourblock has recently been involved in a major dispute with me and Rjensen. Therefore I would not recommend pinging him or her. If 36hourblock wants to participate productively in this process, that's okay. But I wouldn't make an invitation. Also, I think it's a possibility that the text that has been added to that section could be seen as a bit too wordy, or confusing in syntax.
I thank you for your help on the last review. If anyone is interested in helping with this one, I would be grateful. Thank you. Display name 99 ( talk) 19:15, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
The article needs to be updated based on the renaming of Calhoun College (see [2]). I think the unnaming should have the same amount of space as the current mention, but since there appears to be an active interest in promoting this article I'll leave it to those editors to make the necessary adjustments. Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 19:30, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Below is a full quote from the source cited:
President Andrew Jackson always declared that Calhoun was a traitor and should have been treated as one. To the clergyman who received him into the Presbyterian Church before his death, who asked him what he would have done with Calhoun and the other nullifiers if they had kept on, he replied : "Hung them, sir, as high as Haman. They should have been a terror to traitors to all time, and posterity would have pronounced it the best act of my life.”
"As he said these words he half rose in bed, and all the old fire glowed in his old eyes again." In his last sickness he again declared that, in reflecting upon his administration, he chiefly regretted that he had not had John C. Calhoun executed for treason. “My country,' said the general, “would have sustained me in the act, and his fate would have been a warning to traitors in all time to come." Source: https://archive.org/stream/trueandrewjacks02bradgoog/trueandrewjacks02bradgoog_djvu.txt DOR (HK) ( talk) 11:15, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
The quote from the Abbeville Institute that ends the Historical Reputation section seems biased and, more importantly, without substance. It's bad enough that there is no mention of the context—that the Abbeville Institute was founded by secession defender Donald Livingston with the express purpose of defending the Confederate South—but there is no explanation of *why* "No American public figure after the generation of the Founding Fathers has more to say to later times than Calhoun." If the text of the article is to end with a defense of Calhoun, it should at least be a substantive one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:151F:FB:FD6A:F219:A8C1:4431 ( talk) 07:18, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on John C. Calhoun. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 07:35, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on John C. Calhoun. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 17:14, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
Hi Tom, can you explain your change to the John C. Calhoun page? John C. Calhoun was a major advocate of the Southern states' rights movement, and he did lead the South to secede from the Civil War, so if you'd like to make an edit that separates these causes and effects, that'd be great, but I don't think a full rollback is necessary. Feel free to comment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Historybuff18 ( talk • contribs) 21:50, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
A coat of arms has been placed here without explanation. Who awarded it to him? CsikosLo ( talk) 15:42, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:George Peter Alexander Healy - John C. Calhoun - Google Art Project.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on March 18, 2018. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2018-03-18. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich ( talk) 03:26, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
We detect a solitary flute playing the dulcet tones of “The Bonnie Blue Flag” from deep below. A scarlet halo begins to glow, and with it rises “the cast iron man” – John Caldwell Calhoun – “his own self!” [1] [2]
We hear a band take up the syncopated strains of “Dixie” as the former master of Fort Hill plantation descends slowly into the smoky abyss. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36hourblock ( talk • contribs) 18:51, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
References
According to https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/artifact/Painting_32_00009.htm Calhoun was born "near Calhoun Mills, Abbeville District (now Mount Carmel, McCormick County), South Carolina" any reason why I should not update the article with this statement (and reference) ? Thanks GrahamHardy ( talk) 17:29, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
"By the late 1820s, his views changed radically and he became a leading proponent" should be "By the late 1820s, his views had changed radically and he had become a leading proponent." Thank you. 39.9.232.28 ( talk) 07:45, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
The way it is makes it seem like being Vice President was the pinnacle of his career, and it wasn’t. deisenbe ( talk) 14:12, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
This
edit request to
John C. Calhoun has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Change "He is remembered for strongly defending slavery and for advancing the concept of minority rights in politics, which he did in the context of defending white Southern interests from perceived Northern threats." to "He is remembered for strongly defending slavery and advocating white supremacy." The statement as it is suggests that whites were a political minority in the south, when white Americans were considered the only actual citizens of the United States, as Black Americans (free or enslaved) and Native Americans were not recognized as American citizens during his lifetime. Murkydismalisupset ( talk) 05:00, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
{{
edit semi-protected}}
template.This section seems to be a bit ambiguous. This should be repaired. A great many people would like to know where, exactly, this person is buried for the purpose of "paying our respects". I personally would like to know exactly where he is buried in order to pay my personal respects. lol 98.194.39.86 ( talk) 18:37, 18 December 2018 (UTC)