Talk:XYZ Affair

message: Thomas Jefferson, quoted in this article:  Jefferson Would Have Stood With Cindy Sheehan noted that: "The spirits of the people were so much subdued and reduced to despair by the X Y Z imposture, and other stratagems and machinations, that they would have sunk into apathy and monarchy, as the only form of government which could maintain itself."  
Is there not substancial speculation that X, Y, and Z were false flag agents of Adams used to stir up public indignation against France so that the Alien and Sedition Act could be past?
----
Two centuries on,do we know the identities of the agents? Bastie
::the episode was real enough and the names are known. Read any of the books cited.Rjensen 22:06, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Older

message: It seems to me like the article reads with a very strong american bias, while mainly ignoring how the french saw this. Although this is hardly suprising, because quite possibly this entire article is written by american?s ;p Mathmo 13:36, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The contents of the article don't have a bias I can see, but there may be a strong bias of omission. It presents the prevailing contemporary American reaction to the affair, but does NOT present the contemporary French take on it.  Is this because that information is mixed or poorly-documented or not widely known?  -t  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.82.52.228 (talk) 15:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: bias?

message: I know that $10M back then must have been a massive amount of money, especially since I don't think the Federal government had taxes yet at that point.  Can someone do an article which shows approximate money equivalence at different points in history?  I know it's not a simple subject, since barter, changes in the standards of living, and changes in the real cost of various things all contribute to distort things.  Maybe the best way to do this would be to simply show the percentage change between decades, and make it clear that extrapolation beyond that decade of time makes the comparison increasingly tenuous.  No matter how it's done, it would be nice to see roughly how much $10M back then would be in modern terms.  --Scott McNay 06:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is extremely hard, agreed, because of the difference in standard of living, inflation, and so on. But the national debt as of 1800 was about $83 million . So asking for a bribe equating to a payment of over one tenth of the national debt back then would be akin to asking for $1 trillion today. (Please note that I assume that national debt and inflation are roughly on par between then and now, and so $1T is both original research and probably wrong. But at least it's a ballpark estimate.) Ourai т с 02:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well the bribe to gain access to the minister is about what the US paid 5 years later for all of Louisiana. Rjensen 02:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The bribe requested was about $250k, and the Louisiana Purchase was $15 M. Following a footnote on the Louisiana Purchase page, however, I ran across this  handy tool for converting costs. Based on percentage of GDP, $10 M in 1797 dollars is about $300 billion in 2005 dollars. I have added the reference to the article. Ourai т с 22:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Money equivalence? 

message: In reverting some vandalism, I also reverted a change to the amount of the requested loan. Looking through the article history, I see that it was changed from $10M to $12M only in October by an anon editor with little explanation, so the anon editor who changed it back to $10M (in December) may well have been right. I don't have ready access to any of the cited sources; someone who does please ensure that the correct figure is included (if definitively known). -- Pawl 17:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed it. Rjensen 19:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How much was the requested loan? 

message: I believe that the xyz affair was the dirrect cause of the Logan Act does anyone know if this is true (and even better - have a source)? Jon513 08:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  logan act 

message: The Department of State cites the event as involving 4 French agents: Nicholas Hubbard (W), Jean Hottinguer (X), Pierre Bellamy (Y), and Lucien Hauteval (Z.)
Any ideas? Doomed Rasher (talk) 23:28, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WXYZ? 

message: As mentioned above this article does suffer from being written entirely from the US point of view. Except for some minor problems that I have removed ("brilliantly") the wording does seem neutral enough, but it is essential to include the French reasons and interests in this story as well. Could any of the knowledgeable editors that has contributed to this article please address this? I assume at least some of the sources listed have information on this (they ought to being reliable academic secondary sources). --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: the article explains the French position in terms historians of both the US and France have agreed on. France wanted a large loan ($10 million), and the French negotiators wanted a large personal bribe ($250,000) for Talleyrand. I have added the cites requested.Rjensen (talk) 09:16, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It is always nice to get more citations in the article, but I did not intent to question the validity of the statements. As I stated above the wording seems neutral enough, my objections was quite literally the point of view of the article (which incidentally may not be quite the same as the Wiki-POV, so the tag might not have been appropriate as it is more a content request). The problem is that the article does has next to nothing in the way of information about the French reasons for this and how the French public saw this incident etc, while it goes into some detail about the American deliberations and the public feelings in this incident. I would have thought that the various works cited did reveal something about this side of the matter. Was it only an "affair" in the American minds or did it have some sort of impact on the French as well? --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:23, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

text: I just looked at the French sources.  It was a secret over there (and here too until Adams gave Congress the documents it demanded). The situation was not symmetrical. A large powerful nation --France--demanded bribes and tributes and loans and apologies--that had a major impact on the much smaller and weaker US. Brute force was standard practice in European diplomacy and the US did not make insulting demands on France. Why did France want money (it was fighting a big war); why did Talleyrand want a bribe (that's how it was done in Europe). the article reflects the point of view of the scholars in the field. Rjensen (talk) 12:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for taking the time to check up on it. I guess I will have to settle with that, although for my personal curiosity it would have been nice at at least to learn about what Talleyrands thoughts had been (perhaps disclosed in letters or memoirs of people close to him) when he learnt that this had cost him a potential ally (at least economically). But if no historian has found any sources on this or just not covered it, then it is clear that it will not be possible to add information on that side of the story in the article. --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:40, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Point of View 

message: In this paragraph
Adams decided on sending Pinckney as part of the commission as Franco-U.S. relations had recently worsened by Talleyrand's rejection of Pinckney as America's minister to France. The French continued to seize American ships, and the Federalist Party, incited by Alexander Hamilton advocated going to war. Congress authorized the build-up of an armyElkins and McKitrick, (1993) pp 665-9
a comma is needed after Alexander Hamilton and a period is needed after the word "army".
Thanks.
98.215.226.225 (talk) 00:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Avicennasis @ 02:31, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request from 98.215.226.225, 5 April 2010 

message: If i am not mistaken, didn't Adams' envoys reach paris in 1797, with John Marshall reaching New York in 1798? I know the Quasi War lasted from 1797 10 1800, but the wording( as of Oct. 2nd 2010) seems to say that the XYZ affair lasted from 1797 to 1800( the date of the Quasi War) as opposed to 1797. 
I may be way off, so may someone please either correct or confirm my dates? I need to know this information. Thank you.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.166.186.39 (talk) 23:21, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong date? 

message: The affair took place in 1797, four years after the execution of Louis XVI.  France was governed by the Directoire exécutif in 1797, the article needs a major correction.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mapsjanhere (talk • contribs) 23:30, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  King??? 

message: Since the name of the article is the "XYZ affair", it would be nice if it established how it got that name. Did Adams mention it in a speech or in an article in periodical, and if so where and when and under what circumstances? Did the public know XYZ referred to the French diplomats, and if so, and if this was the purpose, how so? And when exactly did it become known as the XYZ affair? Questions I feel are basic to a basic understanding of what is indeed a very interesting incident in early US (and Revolutionaty French) history. --Saddhiyama (talk) 01:18, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: good question. when Congress demanded the documents, Adams coded the French diplomats as X, Y and Z. Rjensen (talk) 05:11, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added material explaining how and when it got the name. Magic♪piano 13:43, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  The name of the affair 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on XYZ Affair. 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:
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20100814013746/http://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/XYZ to http://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/XYZ
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 16:13, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified