Talk:Abraham Lincoln/Archive 4

message: I happen to see  that some requested a RFC on this article. As I read through it, I can't find any major changes, but I did find some minor ones.
First, someone should go through and eliminate words that are wiki-linked more then once. Also there are some words that don't have articles and are wiki-linked. Someone should check to see if articles might have been created for them since the last revision.
Second, I'd like to see see more sourcing worked into the article itself. I think that's something that's lacking a bit.
Third, in the sixth paragraph of the summary section a sentence makes the same point again using almost simlar words as it did in the third paragraph. Here is the text of the sixth paragraph:
"Lincoln is always ranked as one of the two or three greatest presidents. His importance comes from his roles in defining the great issues, in organizing and winning a huge war, in destroying slavery, in redefining national values, in building a new political party, and in saving and redefining the Union. His assassination made him a martyr to millions of Americans. However, his Copperhead opponents denounced him as an unconstitutional tyrant for declaring martial law, suspending civil liberties, habeas corpus, and the First Amendment, and ordering the arrest of thousands of public officials and newspaper publishers.
This duplicate sentence really should be deleted as the same point was already made.
Fourth, in the Emancipation Proclamation section in the second to last paragraph there is a sentence that reads, "This move remains one of the great seizures of private property by the federal government, restoring the ownership of the blacks to themselves." My feeling is this is a highly POV statement with nothing to back it up and should be deleted.
Fifth, in the Assassination section in the fifth paragraph there is a link to the National Museum of Health and Medicene. This should be in the "External Links" section at the bottom of the article. Davidpdx 08:13, 9 May 2006 (UTC
:OK, we've done our share. Your turn.Sfahey 14:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Davidpdx's comment above on the POV sentence in the Emancipation Proclamation section. I think the sentence should be deleted. --Kfreeland 04:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: RFC Abraham Lincoln Article

message: It says Lincoln's in-laws owned slaves....... Are we all 100% on that one being true, I don't think it is but, honestly I don't know...... Input please?
::True. here are the details (From Biography of Lincoln's wife re Abe's father in law, who died in 1849): page 62 says: "By 1830 Robert Todd Smith kept one slave for every white family member of his household. Ten slaves cleaned the house and stables; washed, laundered, and sewed the clothes; cooked the meals; tended the children and horses; and bought the food for ten Todds." 
also [p 65] "Mary learned other things from the family slaves. Mammy Sally, the most constant adult presence in her early years, told menacing stories of spirits, the devil, and that archetypal phantom of West African myth, the jay bird. Mammy's tales of the jay bird terrified Mary. In the traditional splitting of the maternal role into the good and bad, the jay bird was Mammy's evil eye, reporting on the children's misdoings and helping the slave control her numerous charges." 
also [p 66]: "No one in the household of Mary's youth physically abused slaves, although there is evidence that her brother Levi did so later. (According to a formal deposition taken from Betsey Todd after her husband's death, Levi had whipped and burned two family slaves.) For a time in the 1820s [her father] Robert Todd Smith had supported the Kentucky Colonization Society's efforts to send freed slaves to Liberia, and as a legislator in the 1840s he revealed his distaste for slave selling (but not slaveholding) when he opposed efforts to open Kentucky's slave markets to out-of-state imports. Believing slavery wrong in the abstract, he was neither abolitionist nor problack but took the reluctant slaveowner's convenient ground that slavery was a regressive institution tying up capital and inhibiting Lexington's commercial growth." from Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography by Jean H. Baker - 1987.  Rjensen 06:37, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slavery 

message: Anyone interested in reading User:Cathytreks' material regarding the alleged death photograph of Lincoln should read both of the last archives (see top of the page for links.) Otherwise, Cathy is hereby advised that any repetition of the text she's put here before will be immediately deleted. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 03:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cathytreks comments 

message: Sec of State Edward Stanton tried but failed to have every single post mortem photograph of Lincoln destroyed...he failed.
The majority of americans do not really know where Lincoln body is at all.
For he is not still in his tomb as Lincoln's body was stolen in the 1930's by some rather clever body snatchers who dug UNDER the crypt which Robert Lincoln had covered over with concrete in a wasted effort to prevent body snatchers from doing what R. Lincoln tried to prevent, the removing of his father's body from above.
Currently Lincoln's body is on display in a glass coffin in a secret location in Washington D.C., where he is on display and on view to the select few who are rich enough, or connected enough, (High Masonics) along with the other "right people" to see the still remarkably preserved 16th President of the United States, not unlike how V.Lenin is in Red Square in Moscow, Russia.
(Cathytreks 17:05, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Lincoln's Body was stolen after all, and has been photographed to this day

message: The article as a whole seems to jump around a bit. Wouldn't it make sense to make it more chronoligical? For example, the Emancipation Proclamation and Civil War beginnings are sandwiched between politics discussions, then it goes back to the war. I realize that it is all integral and you can't discuss one w/o the other, but it's kind of incongruous and rather confusing when you read through it to keep in your head where you are in time.
Not sure the best way to fix it, but I think something should be done. Civil Engineer III 14:19, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: io:Abraham Lincoln :oc:Abraham Lincoln. Thank you.(João X.M.Santos)
*Done. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 05:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what part of that really meant to be addressed to me. At any rate, Speed was Lincoln's best friend, and an important part of his life (regardless of whether there were any sexual overtones; I tend to think there were not, but that's neither here nor there). We don't disagree re slavery; I've put a signature on the comment from Engleham to avoid further confusion. Nice speech, but kinda misplaced. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 07:03, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

text: The issue about speed is not homophobia: it's more about just having that one sentence (out of the blue) about some guy seems to be discreetly pushing a homosexual agenda. If Speed was such an influential part of Lincoln's life, there should be a paragraph devoted to it. The way it was worded gave it no significance to history or the article whatsoever.Civil Engineer III 12:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually, it's quite easy to deduce a specific agenda when examing your history of contributions to Wikipedia.  Rklawton 13:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chronology 

message: :io:Abraham Lincoln :oc:Abraham Lincoln. Thank you.(João X.M.Santos)
*Done. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 05:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please add io and oc

message: I feel that this article is should be editted in some places because it basically glorifies lincoln.  It is hypocritical that a "bad" leader cant be depicted in a positive light, but must be depicted in a neutral or even negative one.  But a "good" leader can be is portrayed in a positive light only.  I just feel that the negative aspects of Lincoln are understated or put into a postive light and that his positive achievements are glorified and worshipped.
P.S. if you want my opinion, lincoln was a terrible dictator who stole the basic rights of the people which are guaranteed by the constitution.  Also, he further violated the constitution by over extending his rights as the president.
12.240.2.80 04:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what part of that really meant to be addressed to me. At any rate, Speed was Lincoln's best friend, and an important part of his life (regardless of whether there were any sexual overtones; I tend to think there were not, but that's neither here nor there). We don't disagree re slavery; I've put a signature on the comment from Engleham to avoid further confusion. Nice speech, but kinda misplaced. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 07:03, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

text: The issue about speed is not homophobia: it's more about just having that one sentence (out of the blue) about some guy seems to be discreetly pushing a homosexual agenda. If Speed was such an influential part of Lincoln's life, there should be a paragraph devoted to it. The way it was worded gave it no significance to history or the article whatsoever.Civil Engineer III 12:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually, it's quite easy to deduce a specific agenda when examing your history of contributions to Wikipedia.  Rklawton 13:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Objectiveness of the article 

message: It belongs in the article the many allegations of Lincoln's homosexuality.  (added by User:67.8.115.243)
*"Many"? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 03:57, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Kooks repeating rumors is never more than kooks repeating rumors.  You'll note how deftly I avoided calling you a kook, while still strongly implying it.  Who Lincoln messed around with is as irrelevant as it is unverifiable.  Show some class and leave the sex lives in the bedroom.70.115.211.122 07:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I do not disagree with your points above. I only object to wording that may leave the uninformed reader with the wrong impression. Adding the clause "a common practice at the time" would pretty much clear things up. Rklawton 08:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The sources I'm using do not actually state that. I have no objection to anyone else adding that phrase, if there is a source that does say it.  Be bold  Wjhonson 08:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That was one possible way to solve a problem you've created.  Another solution would be to remove that section entirely under the theory that no information is better than misleading information.  I'm not particular about how you solve it, but leaving it stand as it is will be problematical, and you will likely find your own solution more satisfactory than the approach taken by some other editor in the morning.  Rklawton 08:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: An article about Lincoln which does not mention Speed is just pure censorship.  Speed was his closest, most intimate friend, as they both state many times in their letters.  The sole possible reason for excising Speed is censorship of this part of his life.  That isn't acceptable.  No historian of Lincoln would find that acceptable.  In fact there is no history of Lincoln whatsoever which excises Speed.  If you can find one, post it.  The sources are clear that he was his most intimate friend. Wjhonson 20:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was just another suggested solution to a problem you created.  The problem is that your edit may create a false impression on the reader, and that is worse than censorship.  The question now at hand is why is it you do not wish to fix the problem you have created?  How you fix it, as I have said before, is not important to me.  I was just trying to be nice and allow you to fix your own work.  Rklawton 21:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I already mentioned, my sources do not give any wording that would *fix* it to make it more palatable to modern sense.  If you have a source which states that "it was common practice" or however you're suggesting changeing it, then be my guest and post your source.  I don't have a source which states that, so I don't want to venture into WP:OR by posting such a quote.  But I have absolutely no problem with someone else posting such a quote if they have a source which states it. Wjhonson 23:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So your approach to editing is to add incomplete and misleading information in hopes someone else will come along to clean up your messes.  Another word for this is vandalism.  Rklawton 23:09, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Your cavalier attitude toward misleading readers is unbecoming and unsuitable for an editor, and so I accuse you of vandalizing this article with the deliberate intention of misleading readers.  Rklawton 01:22, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Lincoln's Homosexuality

message: I feel this whole article is woefully incomplete. One glaring omission is Lincoln's speech at Cooper Union in 1860. This speech made him a star & convinced the new Republican party that Lincoln could win a national election. In this speech Lincoln adroitly argued that 21 out the 39 signers of the Constitution believed the federal government had the final say when it came to the issue of expanding slavery into new territories or states. This issue after all, was the reason the Civil War has fought. 
Without Lincoln's speech at Cooper Union he would have been nothing more but an obscure politician in Illinois history. This speech needs to be added to this article. Here is the speech.
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm
Lester113
: It does seem a sad omission. That speech probably deserves its own article (almost as important as the GA and his 2nd IA). BusterD 15:44, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I quite agree.  The text of the speech itself is on wikisource (Cooper's Union Speech).  The significance of the speech needs to be weaved into this article.   --rogerd 21:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Good points. Lincoln did a HECK of a lot of research in libraries, using the limited resources of his day to make his points in his speeches. They were NOT unprepared speeches but the products of intense research and reasoning. He absolutely hated extemporaneous speaking declining, for example, when asked to speak about Lee's surrender to well-wishers at the White House (Executive Mansion - until T Roosevelt changed its name) SimonATL 04:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Lincoln speech at Cooper Union

message: The article inaccurately stated that Lincoln County, Kentucky was named after Abraham Lincoln. It was in fact named after Benjamin Lincoln 29 years before Abraham Lincoln's birth. The Wikipedia page on Lincoln County, Kentucky (Lincoln_County%2C_Kentucky) references this.
Ukgreg 22:01, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Inaccuracy of Lincoln County, Kentucky Being Named After Abraham Lincoln

message: Someone has suggested that the article Abraham Lincoln in popular culture be merged with this one and it seems like they have neglected to provide any comments. I will start. Hal Jespersen 23:47, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Popular culture merge?