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Opening the page. Does anyone have any ideas about further improvements? Ezratrumpet 06:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Alexander Stephenson's lineage:
Daughter > Hazel Stephenson married to Ashley Epley
Grandsons> George Epley married To Susanne and James Epley married to Gladys Snowden McKillip "Betty"
Great Grandchildren> Jennifer Lynn Epley married to Steve Sclafani with the children Hailey Elizabeth Scalfani and Allie May Sclafani~ Lawrence Allen Epley married Jane Ellen Myers* with children Taylor Paige Epley and Marissa Brook Epley
None of this is correct . . . Alexander Stephens (not "Stephenson") never married and had no direct decendents. Tom ( talk) 10:01, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
For purposes of template management, I think that this page should reflect Stephens as V-P of the CSA rather than as a US Congressman. Ezratrumpet 04:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Any objections to removing this sentence as unnecessary? "It seems, he had never been barred from federal office by law, in contrast to Jefferson Davis." Ezratrumpet 12:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Lineage? You have the wrong man. Alexander H Stephens was a life-long bachelor and left no heirs. Please correct.
Stephens was 4'11, a notable height- it should be mentioned- thats freakishly small.
Men were shorter in general in those days. Alec Stevens at 4'11 would have been like Michael J. Fox today -- notably small but hardly a dwarf. Cranston Lamont 01:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know where this information came from, but it's completely erroneous. Stephens was 5'7" tall, which, since he weighed only 96 pounds at his heaviest, still rendered him a freakish physical specimen. I wrote the 1988 biography of Stephens, so I know what I'm talking about. Tom ( talk) 09:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Stephens was Provisional VP of the CSA: February 18, 1861 to February 22, 1862, then VP of the CSA: February 22, 1862 to May 10, 1865. This should be shown in the Infobox. GoodDay 21:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
They let this guy run for the Senate after the war. No wonder it took a hundred years to get to grips with civil rights. They should have chopped off his head.
Removed "Traitor" from nationality. That is out of place polemic.
Taylor did not actually block the Compromise of 1850. The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor & Millard Fillmore by Elbert B. Smith refutes this legend.
Deleted extended quotes and discussion of Cornerstone Speech, which has its own article.
Many style tweaks (Representative for "congressman". etc).
-- Rich Rostrom ( Talk) 21:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Would it be true to say that Stephens was technically President of the Confederacy for six days given that Jefferson had relinquished that office six days earlier?-- The Shadow Treasurer ( talk) 06:25, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
This is the case for moving this article, Alexander Stephens, to Alexander H. Stephens. I do not expect this to be controversial, but I shall go into detail regardless.
According to WP:COMMONNAME:
Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article. In determining what this name is, we follow the usage of reliable sources, such as those used as references for the article.
It is easy to establish that Stephens is most commonly referred to with his middle initial (i.e., Alexander H. Stephens), and not without it (i.e., Alexander Stephens, the present name of this article).
Observe all of the references used in the article which make use of his name:
Without fail, they all use the middle initial. Another source, Trent's Southern Statesmen of the Old Régime, also uses the initial, its fifth chapter being entitled "Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs". If necessary, additional reliable sources could be mentioned—e.g., Britannica.
A search engine test is also decisive. With the search "restrict[ed] the results to pages written in English, and exclud[ing] the word 'Wikipedia'", per WP:COMMONNAME, the results are 800,000 for Alexander H. Stephens and 83,400 for Alexander Stephens. With some additional phrases to eliminate any false positives, the count is 97,900 for Alexander H. Stephens and 23,700 for Alexander Stephens.
I believe I have more than sufficiently justified the move, and shall now proceed to request the redirect Alexander H. Stephens be deleted. -- darolew ( talk) 05:55, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Dear all,
There's a small error that's beyond my knowledge to fix. Currently the article reads: In 1851 he was re-elected as a Unionist, in 1853 as a Whig (from the 8th District), and in 1855 and 1857 as a Democrat. The link for Unionist goes to the page for the Constitutional Union Party (United States) Here's the problem: That Constitutional Union Party didn't exist in 1851. Possibly Stephens was involved with a different, earlier Constitutional Union Party which doesn't yet have a page. See the disambiguation page. Oaklandguy ( talk) 21:02, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
This article in general isnt neutral at all. It colors wherever it is possible simply by using positively connoted vocabulary. Instead of saying "the newspaper characterizes him as intelligent..." this article presents the flattering characterization (which comes from an award show) as if it was an objective fact. His widely known speech "about the natural condition of negroes" becomes "famous", though if not simply "widely known" actually "infamous" would be more correct. This sentence on top: "Nevertheless, he was brave, determined and hard-working." Does that have anything to with neutrality? It is as encyclopadical as if the article would say he was lazy, greedy misanthrope, because he defended slavery. But that is apologized by claiming it was "rationale" (= a logic(!) arguement!) and based on common views of that time. Actually very many (especionally modern and intelligent people) people had a different view and he simply had to justify economic interests. That of course is POV too. It is not in the actual article and the things mentioned above don´t belong there at all too! 77.188.129.228 ( talk) 00:55, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
An IP editor removed, without explanation, two paragraphs of unsourced material. The material was restored by an editor who assumed, in good faith I assume, that this action was vandalism. In fact, the material removed should have been removed. It claimed, among other things, that the U.S. President had been put under house arrest, the Secretary of War was jailed, and the U.S. military overthrew civilian governments while the entire south was placed under military dictatorship.
This material goes beyond even an extreme Dunning School version of history. It does not belong in the article. It was added w/o explanation by another IP on May 3. Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 20:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
This sentence must be the result of some poorly targeted copy/paste/delete:
"During the convention he reminded his fellow delegates that Republicans were a minority in Congress (especially allowing northern states to nullify the Fugitive Slave Law with "personal liberty laws." " — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.149.67.121 ( talk) 15:35, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
This was his main post-war testament, justifying the Southern cause. A few words on its content and critical reception would be appropriate. Valetude ( talk) 19:54, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
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The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Alexander H. Stephens/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Needs lead expanded per WP:LEAD and inline citations |
Last edited at 12:40, 12 December 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 07:11, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
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The result of the move request was: not moved. Jenks24 ( talk) 10:10, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Alexander H. Stephens → Alexander Stephens – I would have submitted this as uncontroversial, but I saw this was moved the opposite direction I am proposing in 2009/2010 ( #Moving this article to Alexander H. Stephens). I see sources, articles and books, that use the middle initial and others that do not. (For instance, [4], [5], [6], [7]) The middle initial is an unnecessary disambiguator, as there is no other notable "Alexander Stephens" or "Alexander Stevens". For simplicity's sake, I believe the middle initial should be dropped. – Muboshgu ( talk) 19:58, 23 October 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. Anarchyte ( work | talk) 08:01, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Eric Foner (The Fiery Trial, p.153) briefly quotes an exchange of letters between Lincoln and Stephens possibly dated around December 1860, and characterizes Stephens as at the time still anti-secession. Was Stephens just representing himself so in the correspondence? ELSchissel ( talk) 03:31, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
The sidebar has Stephens listed as a "Democrat" from 1861 to 1883, despite his being obviously a member of the Confederacy, which had no political parties, so that date range is impossible.
Perhaps I'm looking to hard into this. But was Stephens provisional acting president of the Confederacy, from February 11 to 18, 1861 & later acting president of the Confederacy, from May 5 to 11, 1865? GoodDay ( talk) 16:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
The text of the article states:
"Stephens was re-elected from the 7th District as a Whig in 1844, 1846, and 1848, as a Unionist in 1851, and again as a Whig (from the 8th District) in 1853. In 1855 and 1857, his re-elections came as a Democrat."
The word "Unionist" links to the Constitutional Union Party, which did not exist until 1860. That is one problem. But, furthermore, the infobox states:
"Political party
Here Unionist links to Unionist Party (United States), which is proper. (I will change it in a second.) But, here is the bigger problem, you see conflicting dates on political party affiliation. Was he a Dem in 1855? Or a Unionist? Was he a Whig in 1853 or a Unionist? Etc. (Or was Unionist an affiliation and not a distinct political party?) TuckerResearch ( talk) 17:45, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Alexander H. Stephens article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
Opening the page. Does anyone have any ideas about further improvements? Ezratrumpet 06:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Alexander Stephenson's lineage:
Daughter > Hazel Stephenson married to Ashley Epley
Grandsons> George Epley married To Susanne and James Epley married to Gladys Snowden McKillip "Betty"
Great Grandchildren> Jennifer Lynn Epley married to Steve Sclafani with the children Hailey Elizabeth Scalfani and Allie May Sclafani~ Lawrence Allen Epley married Jane Ellen Myers* with children Taylor Paige Epley and Marissa Brook Epley
None of this is correct . . . Alexander Stephens (not "Stephenson") never married and had no direct decendents. Tom ( talk) 10:01, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
For purposes of template management, I think that this page should reflect Stephens as V-P of the CSA rather than as a US Congressman. Ezratrumpet 04:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Any objections to removing this sentence as unnecessary? "It seems, he had never been barred from federal office by law, in contrast to Jefferson Davis." Ezratrumpet 12:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Lineage? You have the wrong man. Alexander H Stephens was a life-long bachelor and left no heirs. Please correct.
Stephens was 4'11, a notable height- it should be mentioned- thats freakishly small.
Men were shorter in general in those days. Alec Stevens at 4'11 would have been like Michael J. Fox today -- notably small but hardly a dwarf. Cranston Lamont 01:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know where this information came from, but it's completely erroneous. Stephens was 5'7" tall, which, since he weighed only 96 pounds at his heaviest, still rendered him a freakish physical specimen. I wrote the 1988 biography of Stephens, so I know what I'm talking about. Tom ( talk) 09:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Stephens was Provisional VP of the CSA: February 18, 1861 to February 22, 1862, then VP of the CSA: February 22, 1862 to May 10, 1865. This should be shown in the Infobox. GoodDay 21:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
They let this guy run for the Senate after the war. No wonder it took a hundred years to get to grips with civil rights. They should have chopped off his head.
Removed "Traitor" from nationality. That is out of place polemic.
Taylor did not actually block the Compromise of 1850. The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor & Millard Fillmore by Elbert B. Smith refutes this legend.
Deleted extended quotes and discussion of Cornerstone Speech, which has its own article.
Many style tweaks (Representative for "congressman". etc).
-- Rich Rostrom ( Talk) 21:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Would it be true to say that Stephens was technically President of the Confederacy for six days given that Jefferson had relinquished that office six days earlier?-- The Shadow Treasurer ( talk) 06:25, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
This is the case for moving this article, Alexander Stephens, to Alexander H. Stephens. I do not expect this to be controversial, but I shall go into detail regardless.
According to WP:COMMONNAME:
Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article. In determining what this name is, we follow the usage of reliable sources, such as those used as references for the article.
It is easy to establish that Stephens is most commonly referred to with his middle initial (i.e., Alexander H. Stephens), and not without it (i.e., Alexander Stephens, the present name of this article).
Observe all of the references used in the article which make use of his name:
Without fail, they all use the middle initial. Another source, Trent's Southern Statesmen of the Old Régime, also uses the initial, its fifth chapter being entitled "Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs". If necessary, additional reliable sources could be mentioned—e.g., Britannica.
A search engine test is also decisive. With the search "restrict[ed] the results to pages written in English, and exclud[ing] the word 'Wikipedia'", per WP:COMMONNAME, the results are 800,000 for Alexander H. Stephens and 83,400 for Alexander Stephens. With some additional phrases to eliminate any false positives, the count is 97,900 for Alexander H. Stephens and 23,700 for Alexander Stephens.
I believe I have more than sufficiently justified the move, and shall now proceed to request the redirect Alexander H. Stephens be deleted. -- darolew ( talk) 05:55, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Dear all,
There's a small error that's beyond my knowledge to fix. Currently the article reads: In 1851 he was re-elected as a Unionist, in 1853 as a Whig (from the 8th District), and in 1855 and 1857 as a Democrat. The link for Unionist goes to the page for the Constitutional Union Party (United States) Here's the problem: That Constitutional Union Party didn't exist in 1851. Possibly Stephens was involved with a different, earlier Constitutional Union Party which doesn't yet have a page. See the disambiguation page. Oaklandguy ( talk) 21:02, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
This article in general isnt neutral at all. It colors wherever it is possible simply by using positively connoted vocabulary. Instead of saying "the newspaper characterizes him as intelligent..." this article presents the flattering characterization (which comes from an award show) as if it was an objective fact. His widely known speech "about the natural condition of negroes" becomes "famous", though if not simply "widely known" actually "infamous" would be more correct. This sentence on top: "Nevertheless, he was brave, determined and hard-working." Does that have anything to with neutrality? It is as encyclopadical as if the article would say he was lazy, greedy misanthrope, because he defended slavery. But that is apologized by claiming it was "rationale" (= a logic(!) arguement!) and based on common views of that time. Actually very many (especionally modern and intelligent people) people had a different view and he simply had to justify economic interests. That of course is POV too. It is not in the actual article and the things mentioned above don´t belong there at all too! 77.188.129.228 ( talk) 00:55, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
An IP editor removed, without explanation, two paragraphs of unsourced material. The material was restored by an editor who assumed, in good faith I assume, that this action was vandalism. In fact, the material removed should have been removed. It claimed, among other things, that the U.S. President had been put under house arrest, the Secretary of War was jailed, and the U.S. military overthrew civilian governments while the entire south was placed under military dictatorship.
This material goes beyond even an extreme Dunning School version of history. It does not belong in the article. It was added w/o explanation by another IP on May 3. Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 20:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
This sentence must be the result of some poorly targeted copy/paste/delete:
"During the convention he reminded his fellow delegates that Republicans were a minority in Congress (especially allowing northern states to nullify the Fugitive Slave Law with "personal liberty laws." " — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.149.67.121 ( talk) 15:35, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
This was his main post-war testament, justifying the Southern cause. A few words on its content and critical reception would be appropriate. Valetude ( talk) 19:54, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to one external link on
Alexander H. Stephens. Please take a moment to review
my edit. You may add {{
cbignore}}
after the link to keep me from modifying it, if I keep adding bad data, but formatting bugs should be reported instead. Alternatively, you can add {{
nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}}
to keep me off the page altogether, but should be used as a last resort. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{
Sourcecheck}}
).
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.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 11:27, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Alexander H. Stephens/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Needs lead expanded per WP:LEAD and inline citations |
Last edited at 12:40, 12 December 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 07:11, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Alexander H. Stephens. 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:
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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 23:38, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. Jenks24 ( talk) 10:10, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Alexander H. Stephens → Alexander Stephens – I would have submitted this as uncontroversial, but I saw this was moved the opposite direction I am proposing in 2009/2010 ( #Moving this article to Alexander H. Stephens). I see sources, articles and books, that use the middle initial and others that do not. (For instance, [4], [5], [6], [7]) The middle initial is an unnecessary disambiguator, as there is no other notable "Alexander Stephens" or "Alexander Stevens". For simplicity's sake, I believe the middle initial should be dropped. – Muboshgu ( talk) 19:58, 23 October 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. Anarchyte ( work | talk) 08:01, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Eric Foner (The Fiery Trial, p.153) briefly quotes an exchange of letters between Lincoln and Stephens possibly dated around December 1860, and characterizes Stephens as at the time still anti-secession. Was Stephens just representing himself so in the correspondence? ELSchissel ( talk) 03:31, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
The sidebar has Stephens listed as a "Democrat" from 1861 to 1883, despite his being obviously a member of the Confederacy, which had no political parties, so that date range is impossible.
Perhaps I'm looking to hard into this. But was Stephens provisional acting president of the Confederacy, from February 11 to 18, 1861 & later acting president of the Confederacy, from May 5 to 11, 1865? GoodDay ( talk) 16:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
The text of the article states:
"Stephens was re-elected from the 7th District as a Whig in 1844, 1846, and 1848, as a Unionist in 1851, and again as a Whig (from the 8th District) in 1853. In 1855 and 1857, his re-elections came as a Democrat."
The word "Unionist" links to the Constitutional Union Party, which did not exist until 1860. That is one problem. But, furthermore, the infobox states:
"Political party
Here Unionist links to Unionist Party (United States), which is proper. (I will change it in a second.) But, here is the bigger problem, you see conflicting dates on political party affiliation. Was he a Dem in 1855? Or a Unionist? Was he a Whig in 1853 or a Unionist? Etc. (Or was Unionist an affiliation and not a distinct political party?) TuckerResearch ( talk) 17:45, 8 May 2023 (UTC)