Talk:Abraham Lincoln/Archive 5

message: The article states that "Lincoln himself was despondent, and he decided not to run for reelection." in reference to his speeches denouncing the Mexican-American War.  I've read a few biographies of Lincoln (D.H. Donald, Sandburg, Oates, and Goodwin), and none of them state that this was his reason for not running again.  They all, however, talk about how he and two other Whigs, John Hardin and Edward Baker, had agreed to rotate the safe seat between them, and that Lincoln subscibed to this plan and wanted to abide by it (while also taking great pains to convince Hardin to abide by the plan and not try to run again).  There never seemed to be a plan for Lincoln to run again.  Is there a source saying the poor reaction to his speech was his reason for not running again?  Does anyone else remember the rotation plan?  I figured I would get some opinions before changing it.Mattweng8:00pm 24 August 2006 EST
:I just read that section of the Donald biography, and it looks like you're right. Stilgar135 19:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  House Term 

message: "Poor boy makes good" -- is that really the theme they were pushing, as opposed to "poor boy just like most of you"? I'd be more inclined to refer instead to "humble origins" or something like that. What would the contemporary reaction to the rail-splitting iconography have been? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The GOP in 1860 gave heavy emphasis to Lincoln's poverty and rise to the top. It was Lincoln himslef who emphasized "poor-boy-makes-good" theme. Like the log cabin images in 1840, the rails seem to have been effective--they show up in many cartoons for example. Rjensen 15:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course I know about the log cabin and rail splitting iconography -- I was just wondering about the "poor boy makes good" language. Is "poor boy makes good" mid-19th century phrasing, or might we find something contemporary with the same flavor? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:35, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Biographer Thomas (1952) says: "when Abraham Lincoln was a candidate for President of the United States, and John Locke Scripps, a campaign biographer, asked him about his boyhood years, he replied: "Why, Scripps, it is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life. It can all be condensed into a single sentence and that sentence you will find in Gray's Elegy-- 'The short and simple annals of the poor.'"  Thomas adds: "Republican organization was thorough. The party's techniques were skilled. Speakers and campaign literature made the most of Lincoln's boyhood poverty, his pioneer background, his native genius, his rise from obscurity to fame. His nicknames, "Honest Abe" and "the Rail-Splitter," were exploited to the full. " (p 216) Rjensen 15:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good. Now, is "poor boy makes good" mid-19th century phrasing? All I'm asking about now is the particular language; certainly the meaning and intent of the phrase is correct, but it sounds Horatio Alger than Abraham Lincoln to me. (Of course, now that I said that, I notice that the very first entry in our Alger bio is Abraham Lincoln: the Backwoods Boy; or, How A Young Rail-Splitter Became President (1883).) --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  "poor boy makes good" = first citation of exact quote is about 1900. But the article does not claim the term is older. Rjensen 20:19, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Railsplitter 

message: Isn't the lead and the summary serving the same purpose? So in my opinion, the summary heading is redundant and should be eliminated, with some of the essential items moved up to the lead. The lead is rather short for such a long article anyway. Some of the information is even a repeat of the lead, or a repeat with a little more information, which is then fully explained in the article. Superfluous. Civil Engineer III 14:06, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Since no response, went ahead and did it. I think it's a little long though. Maybe some of that can come out completely, since a lead is supposed to be a summary of the article to follow...Civil Engineer III 15:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

text: cut to 390 words and 5 paragraphs Civil Engineer III 18:36, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary 

message: * Lincoln stood 6 feet 3¾ inches (192.4 cm) tall (not including his hat) and thus was the tallest president in U.S. history, just edging out Lyndon Johnson at 6 feet 3½ inches (191.8 cm) tall.
* He was born on the same day as Charles Darwin.
* The last surviving self-described witness to Lincoln's assassination was Samuel J. Seymour (~1860–April 14, 1956), who appeared two months before his death at age 96 on the CBS-TV quiz show I've Got a Secret. He said that as a five-year-old he had thought at first that he—instead of Lincoln—had been shot because his nurse, trying to fix a torn place in his blouse, stuck him with a pin at the moment of the gun's discharge.
* According to legend, Lincoln was referred to as "two-faced" by his opponent in the 1858 Senate election, Stephen Douglas. Upon hearing about this Lincoln jokingly replied, "If I had another face to wear, do you really think I would be wearing this one?"
* According to legend, Lincoln also said, as a young man, on his appearance one day when looking in the mirror: "It's a fact, Abe! You are the ugliest man in the world. If ever I see a man uglier than you, I'm going to shoot him on the spot!" It would no doubt, he thought, be an act of mercy.
* Based on written descriptions of Lincoln, it has been conjectured since the 1960s that Lincoln may have suffered from Marfan syndrome, including the observations that he was much taller than most men of his day and had long limbs, an abnormally-shaped chest, and loose or lax joints.
* Lincoln suffered lifelong depression. During one severe episode triggered by the death of his fiancée, Ann Rutledge, in 1835, his close friends, fearing him suicidal, kept constant watch over him. At one point during his presidency, his depression became so severe that he held a cabinet meeting from his bed. He also suffered from frequent nightmares.
* For a period of years, Lincoln took blue mass pills to alleviate his depression. The main ingredient of these pills was mercury, which is toxic. Some historians now speculate that mercury poisoning may have accounted for the erratic behavior of Lincoln during the years he was taking the pills. He stopped taking them just after his inauguration and his erratic behavior seemed to subside at the same time.  Reports of his behavior are consistent with symptoms of mercury poisoning.  However, without hair samples from Lincoln during the period in question, it is impossible to confirm or invalidate this hypothesis.
* He once mentioned one of his haunting nightmares to his friend. Lincoln mentioned that he was standing in a mourning crowd surrounding a train, and when he asked a grieving woman what had happened, she replied, "The President has been shot, and he has died."
* Lincoln is the only American president to hold a patent. The patent is for a device that lifts boats over shoals.
* Lincoln was famous for many presidential speeches and quotes, one short quote being "No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."
* Lincoln was the first President to sport a beard.
* Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, was returning home from Harvard University, when he lost his balance and fell between two railway cars. A fellow passenger reacted quickly, pulling him from certain death. The helping hand was that of Edwin Booth, a brother of the man who would soon assassinate the young man's father.
*In 1865 Lincoln received a letter from the International Working Men's Association, congratulating him on his reelection and praising his anti-slavery stance. It was penned by Karl Marx.
*Presidents Lincoln and Zachary Taylor were both descended from Colonel Richard Lee of the Lee family of Virginia.
*Lincoln's death chair resides at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan along with the original Logan County Courthouse where he argued cases.
///Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 16:57, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding the claim that Lincoln may have had Marfan's syndrome: The three major indicators of Marfan's syndrome are heart problems, abnormally long arms and legs, and nearsightedness.  Lincoln had no heart trouble, had limbs proportional to his height, and was farsighted, not nearsighted. The article should show at least some indication of this. -WikiMarshall 01:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconded.  If he had Marfan's, he sure lived an unusually long time. Gaviidae 07:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Trivia

message: Did he have it?  I've heard that he did; weird that it's not in the article...  --205.188.117.7 15:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smallpox? 

message: I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information.  I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list.  Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article.  Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here.  Regards, Durova 17:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's a good approach. The popculture material always seems like a bad fit for the biographical articles, but it is of interest to many editors. The number of references to a subject like Washington, Lincoln, etc, are adequate to fill an article. -Will Beback 20:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've left notes at Wikipedia talk:Wikiproject core biographies.  This seems to be the first effort to standardize an approach for this type of material.  Editors did some brainstorming months back when the Joan of Arc list was developing in order to find a title that would include both high culture and pop culture.  Would anyone object if I created this proposed page?  If a better title emerges the list could be renamed. Durova 18:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln]] 

message: I read a biography of Abraham Lincoln saying his mother died when he was 10
'I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks....'
It's on this page: http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/al16.html 4th paragraph
*That's right. She died on October 5, 1818. He was in his tenth year; he was nine years old at his most recent birthday. (Babies are in their first year until they are one year old.) Took me a couple of minutes to figure that out, too... --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 01:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mother's death??? 

message: I am writing to try and find out the name of the Act whereas it prevents more than one son being killed in war.
As in the movie "Saving Private Ryan"...
Please email me at *removed*
Thank you,
Kelly
*A couple of misconceptions here. The Lincoln connection, I imagine, has to do with the story (is it a true one?) of a woman who had three sons in the army, two having had been killed, and Lincoln arranges for the third son to be discharged, to the mother's great relief. (It sounds like a cherry tree story to me, but what do I know?) The "surviving son" thing is marginal, and mostly wrong.   is the Selective Service's writeup on this. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 17:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Name of the Act passed to prevent more than one son being killed in war 

message: A good, short textbook treatment of Lincoln ad Reconstruction appears at  = Liberty Equality Power with Infotrac: A History of the American People Since 1863 - Page 536 by John M. Murrin, Paul E. Johnson, James M. McPherson - (2004); McPherson is a leading historian of the war. For Foner's views see  from his award-winning history of Reconstruction. Also a shorter version of Foner is at . For a book-length history see . In a word: wiki has to include this very important material. Rjensen 03:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Reconstruction was in operation in 1863 and it was high on Lincoln's agenda. Rjensen 05:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lincoln and Reconstruction--specific cites and links 

message: Obviously, the quickest way to get this animal under control is to drop the ultra-lengthy Civil War section.  It's already covered aplenty in its own article.  any tidbits worth saving can always be accessed later and incorporated in the main article.  I plan to remove it in about a week, but would like to hear from others before i do.  Stevewk 21:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is actually a fair amount of extraneous material that can be taken out (for example, who cares that he was born the same day as Darwin?). I will volunteer to take the snippers and carefully edit this article to shorten it, without sacrificing the essential information. Sound OK, Steve? I may copy this into my sandbox and start playing with shortening it when I get time.Scott Mingus 00:18, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal: remove Civil War section

message: I just finished reading "Team of Rivals" and found it quite interesting.  Any other recommendations?
* Sandburg's works. --YankeeDoodle14 05:52, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Although Gary and Jim are certainly two of the most prominent Civil War scholars, neither has attempted a biography of Lincoln that I know of. Jim's 1991 Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution is an analysis in seven essays of how American society was revolutionized by the Civil War; his Battle Cry of Freedom is superb, but it is about the war era in a concise single volume, not focused on Lincoln per se. David H. Donald's 1995 Lincoln has been described as the "best single volume biography of Abraham Lincoln."  Carl Sandberg's Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, six volumes published from 1926 to 1939, have been described as a "masterpiece of poetic biography" but they are not known for historical accuracy, particularly about his antebellum life. I understand that Michael Burlingame is working on a four volume biography of Lincoln, to be released in 2007 and 2008. Hal Jespersen 00:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Books about Lincoln 

message: Hi. "Canoeing" is spelled "canoing" and "leapt" is spelled "lept." I don't know how to edit it. Someone who knows can do an Edit-Find and fix these errors. Thanks.
*Done. Stevewk 16:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling errors 

message: ok, the deed is done.  the AL page is already much easier to work with.  someone else might consider moving the relevant Further Reading, External Links, etc.: Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War.  Stevewk 00:18, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: no the deed is not done. Even if we have a spearate page oin topic the main article--which is all most people read, has to have a full analysis of by far his most important role in War.Rjensen 18:00, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Rjensen on this. There was no consensus in this page on whether to remove all that material, whether it went into a separate article or not. In fact, I believe most of the comments to your proposal were quite negative. If a separate article remains, which I think is neither necessary or desirable, the parent article must retain an adequate summary of the subject. I do not intend to write such a summary because I am perfectly happy with the existing state of the article. Therefore, the burden is on those who wish to make this arbitrary change. If you would like to see an example of how a subarticle is to be treated, look at Battle of Gettysburg, which has very lengthy subarticles, but the main article has adequate detail for people to understand the main points without reading those subarticles. The Lincoln article must follow a similar standard. Hal Jespersen 23:01, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Steve, you can't unilaterally make decisions about this article. Furthermore, you have reverted to your preferred verion five times in 10 hours, which is a significant breach of the 3 revert rule, and have been blocked for a day as a result. Rjensen is very close to going over three as well and would do well to avoid edit warring. Remember that edit warring hurts the encyclopedia. Coming to an agreement on the Talk page first is the first and best way of avoiding this harm. — Saxifrage ✎ 07:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New page: Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War

message: I reported this problem to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents‎
Somebody has been using a series of IP addresses to systematically blank user talk pages--he hit mine User talk:Rjensen a number of times as well as User talk:Hlj User talk:Kablammo and User talk:Luna Santin and probably others
What the targets all have in common is we strongly protested Stevewk who tried repeatedly to remove all the information about the Civil War from the Abraham Lincoln article. Stevewk was given a 3R suspension but may be using sockpuppets to hit editors.
Thus he may be using 70.110.174.121  151.197.233.65   70.110.155.238 70.110.174.121  etc.  Rjensen 23:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What a shame that someone would take Wikipedia so seriously as to take revenge on people! There are far more important issues in the world and in life than in vandalizing someone's talk page. This is supposed to be a collaborative activity, one that both disseminates usuful information, but also forms a small community unto itself. While we may all disagree at times on content, style, and format, none of these are worth the time and aggravation of getting mad (or even). Consensus should be the norm. 8th Ohio Volunteers 23:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  blanking user talk pages in retaliation for rejected proposal 

message: I went to edit the double dash in the Early Life section (apparently wikipedia doesn't like those), and couldn't find the section I was going to edit, at first, because there was more content — more paragraphs even — in the edit box than was on the article page.  I am aware of the ability to do this hidden comment thing (with < - dashes etc - > ) but I couldn't find them within the edit page.  I don't think I saw all the extra info the other day when I made an edit.  Is this hidden commenting??  I liked what I read in the edit box, even though it makes that part of the article (Early Life and Early Carreer) longer.  I remember being a kid and I had to do a report on another president.  I would have loved to have all this info as a 10-year-old.  But anyway, can someone tell me what's going on with the difference between edit page and actual article?? Thx Gaviidae 07:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to fix it--there was a tiny formatting error that threw whole sections off (a / was missing) . Rjensen 08:24, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Hidden Content

message: I've read this in several places, but this website has a particularly unbiased (and well-referenced) paragraph on the possibility that Lincoln had Marfan Syndrome.  It looks like something that would enhance this article:
:Lincoln's height, long legs, leanness, and thin face are skeletal features of Marfan syndrome. Evidence for other features of Marfan syndrome (ocular, cardiovascular) in Lincoln has been presented, but found weak.  In 1959, Marfan syndrome was diagnosed in a distant relative of Lincoln's (a third cousin four times removed). Sharing 1/4096th of Lincoln's genetic material, it is difficult to ascribe much significance to this fact. Although the world's greatest authority on Marfan syndrome thinks it's "50-50" that Lincoln had the condition, other geneticists think it unlikely. 
MamaGeek (talk/contrib) 14:35, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Marfan syndrome

message: In the second section, it refers to St.Louis, Missouri and Wheeling, Virginia. It should read Wheeling, West Virginia. Since it is a link (and the link does go to Wheeling, West Virginia) i am not comfortable in editing this myself. If someone could do it please. Thanks Jmsseal 01:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not an error.  West Virginia was not created until 1861; in November 1860, Wheeling was still part of the original Commonwealth of Virginia.  So the article is correct as it stands. Fumblebruschi 23:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Error in Election of 1860