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Perfection is not required and these are all extremely good historians; good abolitionism and slavery historians. And all of these historians are in agreement. Give [[WP:FIXFIRST]] a try it's a good one. [[User:Progressingamerica|Progressingamerica]] ([[User talk:Progressingamerica|talk]]) 02:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
Perfection is not required and these are all extremely good historians; good abolitionism and slavery historians. And all of these historians are in agreement. Give [[WP:FIXFIRST]] a try it's a good one. [[User:Progressingamerica|Progressingamerica]] ([[User talk:Progressingamerica|talk]]) 02:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

::{{Ping|Progressingamerica}} Impressive as your quotations are, I still can't see a serious connection between the tax and the abolitionist movement. So now, please stop edit warring (yes, you are edit warring, i.e. repeatedly restoring your favourite version, albeit with some changes). To move forward, I see two possibilities: You could explain to me why you think that I don't read Onuf correctly, or you can seek [[WP:conflict resolution]]. But while there is no consenus, the last stable version will have to stand (see [[WP:NOCON]]). --[[User:Rsk6400|Rsk6400]] ([[User talk:Rsk6400|talk]]) 17:34, 13 August 2021 (UTC)


<br />({{yo|Rjensen}})
<br />({{yo|Rjensen}})

Revision as of 17:34, 13 August 2021

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Definitions of abolition

Section is poorly written. I think the quote should be smaller. The source is also not that good looking. I think the content could be interesting and valid, though.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.20.205.3 (talk) 01:00, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned references in Abolitionism in the United States

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Abolitionism in the United States's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Williams":

  • From Mormonism and slavery: Don B. Williams. Slavery in Utah Territory: 1847–1865.
  • From Charles Sumner: Williams (December 1958), Investigation: 1862
  • From Freedom suit: Heather Andrea Williams, American Slavery: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2014
  • From Booker T. Washington: Williams, Juan (Spring 2012). "Educating a Nation". Philanthropy. Retrieved June 6, 2012.
  • From Christian views on slavery: Don B. Williams (December 2004). Slavery in Utah Territory: 1847-1865. ISBN 9780974607627.
  • From Canterbury Female Boarding School: Williams, Jr., Donald E (2014). Prudence Crandall's legacy : the fight for equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 9780819574701.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 02:31, 24 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Organization is atrocious

This article is in some ways a textbook example of a bad Wikipedia article. The story has no sequence, facts come up here and there, the same things are said twice. And some things aren't said, like there's not even a brief section on the American Anti-slavery Society, which was sending out waves of anti-slavery lecturers, up to 70 at once. The article doesn't have someone like a traditional encyclopedia editor, to take the whole and put it in shape (and sign it). I've taken some steps to clean it up. But it would be a big task to do this, and I'm not going to do it, because I can't sign it, and I wouldn't even get any thanks (and I might piss some people off). I've got more enjoyable things to do with my finite time. But the article is an embarassment. I've demoted it to C class because it needs so much cleanup. deisenbe (talk) 18:57, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree and one of the worst sections is thus one without any reliable secondary sources that states:

There was first the question of what was meant by abolitionism, and what conditions would be attached to it. Would it be immediate, or gradual? What would become of the freed slaves? Were they or could they become citizens, with the right to vote? Would they be invited, or forced, to leave the United States, or set free on condition that they emigrate? (This was the policy in some Southern states; newly freed slaves had to leave the state.) Should they go "back to Africa"? Would slave owners be compensated for the loss of their investment in slaves? Would the slaves be paid for their forced labor by receiving their former owners' lands? Did the federal government have the authority to mandate its end? In the District of Columbia? And was the abolition of slavery a religious obligation, what Christ mandated the faithful work toward, or was it a secular, ethical, and economic matter? Was slavery a positive good, which should be expanded into the new western territories and reintroduced to the Northern states, or was it an evil, sin, or crime to be eliminated as quickly and completely as possible?. This original undergraduate stream of thought is followed by an outrageous self=published quote that is unsourced and written by a person unknown to google scholar There was a racist anti-black anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of white persons, which sought to do away with slavery in order to benefit the soul of the white owner, and destroy the economic basis of the black life of the time, and these people basically believed that black people should not exist, or at least, they should not exist here where we white people exist, and white slaveholders should not exist, or at least, they should not be a part of the society which we decent white folks inhabit.... These mystery anti-slavery people have no names, no organizations, no location, no publication, and no RS is cited. Rjensen (talk) 14:37, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Rjensen: It's pretty discourteous of you not to even give me time to post something explaining what I did. deisenbe (talk) 14:43, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Junk is junk--especially when it comes to historiography like 'what are the main qujestions scholars ask about XYZ." who made up those questions??? what RS were used?? answer--none at all. The long quote is about the worst I have ever seen in Wikipedia--and in this case signed by a totally unknown non-scholar with no publications os any sort to his credit anywhere. I totally agree the entire article is terrible. Rjensen (talk) 15:01, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Parsgraphs that would improve the article

(@CaroleHenson:)

The talk page is where you discuss how to improve the article. I think the article would be better if these beautifully-written, well-organized, and seemingly well-thought-out sections were restored. (I'm a sucker for good writing.) I did not write them. A definition at the beginning of such a complicated topic I found very helpful. If you know something better add it, but I think the article has been made poorer and less useful by the deletion of the following. I know what the policy is, but following the policy has made the article poorer, in my judgment. Isn't there something about being bold and breaking rules?

_____________________

Definitions of abolitionism

Under the general heading of abolitionism were a number of sub-movements which did not get on particularly well. There was first the question of what was meant by abolitionism, and what conditions would be attached to it. Would it be immediate, or gradual? What would become of the freed slaves? Were they or could they become citizens, with the right to vote? Would they be invited, or forced, to leave the United States, or set free oncondition that they emigrate? (This was the policy in some Southern states; newly freed slaves had to leave the state.) Should they go "back to Africa"? Would slave owners be compensated for the loss of their investment in slaves? Would the slaves be paid for their forced labor by receiving their former owners' lands? Did the federal government have the authority to mandate its end? In the District of Columbia? And was the abolition of slavery a religious obligation, what Christ mandated the faithful work toward, or was it a secular, ethical, and economic matter? Was slavery a positive good, which should be expanded into the new western territories and reintroduced to the Northern states, or was it an evil, sin, or crime to be eliminated as quickly and completely as possible?

There were a number of antislavery movements, which at times made for strange bedfellows. There was a racist anti-black anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of white persons, which sought to do away with slavery in order to benefit the soul of the white owner, and destroy the economic basis of the black life of the time, and these people basically believed that black people should not exist, or at least, they should not exist here where we white people exist, and white slaveholders should not exist, or at least, they should not be a part of the society which we decent white folks inhabit. In distinct opposition to these folks, there was an anti-slavery movement, primarily made up of persons of color, which sought improved conditions of life for persons of color, ameliorations both material and spiritual. To cut across the division that was created by two such contrasting motivational patterns, there was an anti-slavery movement made up of persons who sought gradual, step-by-step, piecemeal practical improvements, new good amelioration following new good amelioration, a building process, and there was an anti-slavery movement made up of persons like William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Dwight Weld, Arthur Tappan, and Lewis Tappan who demanded immediate utter freedom and emancipation regardless of the personal or social cost, a tear-it-all-down-and-start-over project[,] and they were willing to see great harm done to real people if only the result would be some change in the wording of a law, written on paper somewhere. There was an Old Abolitionism which was racist, and an Old Abolitionism which was paternalist. There was a New Abolitionism which was Evangelical and millenialist and sought total top-down changes in society, and there was a New Abolitionism which was immanentist and demanded total bottom-up personal transformation, within each individual's soul.[2]

References

  1. ^ Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (1838). Proceedings of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, at its Sixth Annual Meeting, held in Boston, January 24, 1838. Boston: Isaac Knapp. p. xi.
  2. ^ Meredith, Austin (2013). "Theodore". Kouroo Contexture. Retrieved August 15, 2019.

deisenbe (talk) 14:54, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"beautifully-written, well-organized, and seemingly well-thought-out sections were restored. " well written unsourced (the questions) and badly written unsourced falsehood (the long quote). Bottom line: it's bad history AND violates all the RS rules and does not belong here. Rjensen (talk) 15:49, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A paragraph I did write

"Put differently, the ending of slavery in Northern states did not always mean that slaves were freed. Some slaves were taken to Southern states and sold before the prohibitions on slavery went into effect. Enslaved people in the North might be freed as indentured servants who had to work without wages, but always with an ending date and with no more splitting of families. In New York, the remaining indentured servants were freed July 4, 1827, and there was a big celebratory parade, repeated on subsequent July 4ths. There were still hundreds of slaves in Northern states in the 1840 Census. In the South there were millions."

Again, I think the article now follows a policy and the policy makes the article less helpful. I wrote it, so I don't claim impartiality, but I think it's an important point that should be here. deisenbe (talk) 15:00, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

it's a good point BUT it lacks reliable secondary sources and is pretty vague "Some slaves were..." means 100 or 10,000 or what? from where? when? says what RS? I would add that gradualism = no sales, no inherited slavery and a requirement that ex-owners keep maintain the ex-slave regardless of disability or old age. Rjensen (talk) 15:14, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sections

It seems as if the current sections are just a list of unrelated topics. Would anyone have a problem with me organizing the sections, and grouping related content in subsections, so that in the end the Table of contents looks like a good outline of the article?–CaroleHenson (talk) 00:47, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For instance, some initial thoughts are:
  • Move the Progress section and it's subsections to the top and rename Progress to History
Calls for abolition (perhaps integrating with "To 1804")
To 1804
South after 1804
Immediate abolition
The end
Compromise of 1850
Republican Party
John Brown
American Civil War
  • Where possible, put some of the sections under History, like: (and put them in chronological or logical order)
Abolitionism's sudden emergence
Garrison and immediate emancipation
Western Reserve College
Oneida Institute for Science and Industry
Lane Theological Seminary
The colonization vs. abolition debates and the Lane Rebels
A school of abolition
Oberlin Collegiate Institute
Uncle Tom's Cabin
  • Separate section for
Religion and morality
  • Create a heading for Abolition by area - and put under that:
Abolition in the North
Manumission by Southern owners
Western territories
  • Create a Viewpoints section
Black abolitionist rhetoric
Abolitionist women
American Catholics
German immigrants
  • Create an Anti-abolitionist viewpoints section
Anti-abolitionism in the North
The pro-slavery reaction to abolitionism
Emigration
Colonization and the founding of Liberia
Perhaps there could be a grouping for colleges and institutions. How does the idea sound in general?–CaroleHenson (talk) 01:26, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
 Done - I went ahead and made the changes with some slight variations, like renaming the "To 1804 section" to "During the formation of the country". And, I put all the religion info together, which I will edit so it flows a bit better.–CaroleHenson (talk) 05:37, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Report" orphan citation

I am not sure how far back it occurred, but at some time a citation was orphaned with the refname=Report. I made this change, because the refname and the title of the source seemed congruent. Is that change right? Or perhaps there was once a "Report" citation that is different?

I went back about 20 versions before I started moving sections and couldn't find it.–CaroleHenson (talk) 05:24, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Citations

Most of the article is well cited, but there are areas where there are no citations. Sometimes a sentence at the end of a paragraph. Sometimes an entire paragraph. And some of it looks like commentary or original research.

There are very few {{cn}} tags, though. What am I missing?–CaroleHenson (talk) 05:55, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Major revisions and citation needed in Top

This paragraph at the top has some points that show the complexity of the situation but suffers from "lost cause" revisionism. - The next paragraph says the movement was motivated by moral causes but acknowledges economic issues, so this paragraph adds little. Also, is wrong to cast the abolitionist movement as non moralists, primary leaders were furiously religious. -To say that anti-black riots didn't happen in the south, is to forget lynching and state suppression against free blacks. -Lack of citations is bad - " Blacks, some of whom were eloquent, well educated, and good Christians, were not inferior human beings." - point has merit but need phrasing work to not imply most free blacks were at fault for lacking education

"It would be a great oversimplification to say that American abolitionism was a movement of the virtuous North directed against the sinful South. As we have already seen, slavery in the North was dying but not dead. Free blacks, seen as immigrants who would work for cheap, were just as unwelcome in the North as in the South, if not more so, and subject to discrimination and mistreatment almost inconceivable today (2020). It was not only legal but routine to discriminate against and mistreat blacks. (See below.) Anti-free Black riots were common in the North, not the South. The abolitionist movement, in its early years, was directed at Northerners, convincing them, by providing speakers and documentation, that slaves, frequently if not always, were horribly mistreated in the South. Incidentally, Northerners got to see first-hand that Blacks, some of whom were eloquent, well educated, and good Christians, were not inferior human beings. Northern support for ending slavery—once a radical position—grew steadily." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.116.169.104 (talk) 06:39, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Colonization society

@Anwegmann: Could you please explain your objections to the term "black American" ? Also, your addition of enslaved people to the group of people sent to Liberia is unsourced. --Rsk6400 (talk) 06:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's not that I object to the term generally, of course. It's that the term is too specific within the context. The idea of "blackness" or "Blackness" in the 1810s, 20s, and 30s was extremely fluid and multifaceted, and so were the many identities attached to it—hence the reason, for example, the American Colonization Society was founded under the name "Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America" in 1816. The term "black" most often referred to enslaved people in popular discourse, while "free people of color" or "free Negroes" were the terms most often used for freed and freeborn people of perceived African descent. So "black Americans" does two things: 1) It creates an anachronistic meaning for the ACS's intent by infusing modern language and definitions into very specific language of the period under discussion and 2) reduces the focus to the United States alone (as "American" is widely understood to mean "from the United States" today), which is technically inaccurate, as a good number of people from the Caribbean emigrated to Liberia under the auspices of the ACS. Caree Banton's book, More Auspicious Shores: Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Blackness, and the Making of the Liberian Republic, 1865-1912 (Cambridge University Press, 2019), discusses this at length. I hope this helps explain my rationale. And I will happily add this source to the article. Anwegmann (talk) 18:02, 29 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I shortened the whole section, one reason being the low quality of the last part, which repeated some of the content of the first part. I removed your addition of the Carribean migrants. My reason is that this article is about abolitionism in the U.S., so the ACS is only a marginal subject, of which the Carribean migrants are again a marginal point. I kept your addition of enslaved people migrating to Liberia. Regarding "free people of colour": We use modern terminology, not the historical one. In modern usage, also Indigenous Americans would be called "people of colour", so the use of that term might be confusing for our readers. --Rsk6400 (talk) 07:39, 2 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Royal Veto

I know much of this can't be included in the main article but its still useful to provide context. In the early 1770s as the Patriots were still to some extent in their infancy and developing their identity one of the features that their identity contained was abolitionism. That portion of their views was never fully allowed to blossom because "The pillar of the slave trade"(as pointed out by the report of the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission,[1]) kept preventing their laws in many colonies from going into effect. For this reason slavery and the slave trade became its own "football" of sorts with a lot of tit-for-tat and back and forth finger pointing on part of patriot supporters and tory loyalists. Two examples of this in legislative or 'official' work are how the Continental Association placed restrictions on slave trading for economic(not humanitarian) reasons and Dunmore's Proclamation tried to recruit within slave ranks for militaristic(not humanitarian) reasons. Slavery became a way for the patriots to hurt England, and for England to hurt the patriots.

Many patriots came to view slavery as "The King's institution" with Jefferson's philippic in the Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence "he has waged cruel war against human nature itself". Jefferson is hardly the only one on either side of the Atlantic who recognized the British Empire's primary role in regards to slavery. Edmund Burke also noted how odd it was for England to have maintained slavery for so many hundreds of years but then to do an about face and all of a sudden offer freedom. He said: [2] "Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters? From that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters, is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffick? An offer of freedom from England, would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes."

Even after the celebrated decision in the Somersett case, there were some abolitionists who viewed England as being stingy with abolition and keeping it for themselves instead of being generous and having abolitionism in all parts of the British Empire. It could have all ended in 1772, but it didn't. Benjamin Franklin stated it the most pointedly[3], saying: "Can sweetening our tea, &c. with sugar, be a circumstance of such absolute necessity? Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste, compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men? Pharisaical Britain! to pride thyself in setting free a single Slave that happens to land on thy coasts, while thy Merchants in all thy ports are encouraged by thy laws to continue a commerce whereby so many hundreds of thousands are dragged into a slavery that can scarce be said to end with their lives, since it is entailed on their posterity!"

George Mason, like Thomas Jefferson, recognized Royal vetos on colonial attempts to put an end to slavery. At the Constitutional Convention, Mason said: "This infernal trafic originated in the avarice of British Merchants. The British Govt. constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it."[4] That the Patriot leaders were out in front and ahead of the Empire in regards to abolitionist efforts makes friendships that Granville Sharp had with some of the early colonial leaders more easy to understand. Another who found favor with abolitionism and many of the Patriot leaders was Richard Price, who plainly stated it that "It is not the fault of the colonies that they have slaves among them."[5] A statement like this goes too far as plenty of people in the colonies did their part with regard to fostering slavery. However, there came a point when slavery was not just a fact of life. For centuries in every continent slavery had been around and a part of human life whether the Romans or disparate tribes and warlords. But everything changed when patriot leaders consciously decided to put abolitionist measures on the desks of colonial governors to be enacted, and even moreso everything really changed when the King consciously decided to veto abolitionist laws to prevent these laws from becoming colonial law. Progressingamerica (talk) 15:40, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An article should be based on good (reliable) secondary sources. What you provide above and what you added to the article are primary sources. Please read WP:PSTS for the difference. For an article on a historical subject, we rely on sources by modern historians, not by 18th and 19th century politicians. --Rsk6400 (talk) 18:43, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, that is fair. I removed the link to the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission report and put four historians in place. Here is another possibility: Barack Obama, American Historian Progressingamerica (talk) 02:14, 13 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I have more concerns:
The lead section defines abolitionism as a movement which sought to end slavery, not as a movement to "limit" slavery. So I think that efforts to "limit" slavery are simply irrelevant for this article.
Since WP follows academic scholarship (see WP:NOTLEAD), we should not search for facts that are not given prominence in academic works focussing on our subject, in our case, focussing on abolitionism in the United States.
According to your previous edit summary, early colonial abolitionist efforts ... were forcefully put to an end by decree. I don't think that's what mainstream historians say. As far as I know, abolitionist efforts were successful during or soon after the revolution in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, while the Virginian élite, including Jefferson and Washington, never made any serious abolitionist effort. --Rsk6400 (talk) 16:27, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rsk6400: I would like to address all of these items, but could you first define what you mean by "mainstream" here? Many of the historians cited that you keep reverting have Wikipedia pages of their own detailing how "mainstream" they are. Are you reading the citations used before you revert them? Progressingamerica (talk) 14:33, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding "mainstream": I don't think that my definition of "mainstream" differs from that of other people. I didn't deny that the historians you cited were mainstream, I just doubt that the conclusion that you expressed in that edit summary is mainstream. --Rsk6400 (talk) 20:11, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thank you for the insight. I'll re-work what I stated in the article with extremely limited partial quotations out of the academic works cited and a little less Wikipedia:CLOP. So that it is said, what I'm writing about isn't a one-off in one single historian's work. This would be easy to Wikipedia:OVERLINK and I'm also trying to avoid that as well.(I mentioned this in a general way earlier) Progressingamerica (talk) 22:19, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Progressingamerica: You didn't take into account the first two of the concerns I mentioned. Furthermore, Onuf doesn't support your claims. --Rsk6400 (talk) 06:31, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rsk6400: As I said, I wanted to address all of your claims. In this instance, the first of your claims is not really addressable on the surface or I need more information as to what you are really trying to say. There is a historical quirk that erroneously separates slavery and the slave trade. The modern view of the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 is that it is something different and is perhaps "not a serious" abolitionist effort. The problem with this (as historians have noted)[6] is that "there was widespread confusion of "slavery" with the "slave trade."" in the days of early abolitionism. Frederick Douglass said basically the same thing: [7] "there is still more to be said about this abolition of the slave trade. Men, at that time, both in England and in America, looked upon the slave trade as the life of slavery. The abolition of the slave trade was supposed to be the certain death of slavery. Cut off the stream, and the pond will dry up, was the common notion at the time. Wilberforce and Clarkson, clear-sighted as they were, took this view; and the American statesmen, in providing for the abolition of the slave trade, thought they were providing for the abolition of the slavery." Limiting the slave trade was eliminating all of it which is why the article has a build up from 1688 and doesn't just begin with Garrison. The 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition doesn't even limit slavery and was ignored for over a century, how is that in the article? I really don't think we would want to have a review leading to removing over a third of the page content that is clearly relevant. Progressingamerica (talk) 06:13, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My most important point is that we should follow the lead of academic scholarship, that is, we are not the judges on the relevance of certain details, but academic books focusing on abolitionism in the U.S. are. Much as I admire Douglass, but he is pretty irrelevant here, since he is no modern historian. I fear you want to prove the relevance of your addition by a synthesis of quotes from primary sources (like Douglass) and historians focusing on Jefferson. That would be OR, see WP:SYNTH. --Rsk6400 (talk) 07:14, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Rsk6400: I really think we should start over. With your citation of WP:SYNTH that leaves no question in my mind that you're not really reading what's being put in the article and you're too heavily focused(to the point of mixing them) on objecting to what's being put on the talk page. I didn't know WP:SYNTH was intended for these talk pages, but so its said you didn't do a revert here on the basis of SYNTH either. One of the few things you did actually say specifically which was directly about the article changes were that "Onuf doesn't support your claims". Yes he does, and its indicative that you're reading the talk page moreso than anything else. Onuf says in paragraph two of the cited work: (p. 154)

.....one of those tyrannical acts - the Privy Council's veto of the colony's act to impose a small duty on slave imports.....

I wrote in respect of Wikipedia:CLOP:

The colony of Virginia was another colony which passed similar laws in an "effort to curtail" human trade from Africa, leading to the legislature being "blocked every time" by royal authority.

Note that I said "royal authority" here and not necessarily the King. I was reading Onuf specifically at the time I made those last minute changes. So here's my question. How can you say this isn't supportive? It is affirming that a veto occurred. Progressingamerica (talk) 07:05, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A "small [sic] tax" is obviously not intended to abolish the importation of slaves. Additionally, Onuf explicitly says that the abolitionist desires of the colonies are "hard for modern readers to take seriously". --Rsk6400 (talk) 05:24, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rsk6400: Are you sure that Onuf explicitly contradicts himself in the very same paragraph? What does any of that have to do with the royal veto? Progressingamerica (talk) 05:53, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Progressingamerica: An editor who repeatedly restores their preferred version is edit warring, regardless of whether those edits are justifiable (WP:WAR). That's why we should try to reach consensus here. If we don't reach consensus, WP:NOCON applies: In discussions of proposals to add, modify, or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit. BTW: I didn't claim that Onuf contradicts himself. --Rsk6400 (talk) 05:56, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rsk6400: If you didn't say that Onuf contradicts himself, then your previous claim is confounding as Onuf makes clear that the proposed law was in fact vetoed by British authorities. It is not clear at all what "desires" a colony has to do with anything as those are feelings and not actual laws passed. I have not made any edits in regard to any desires so that should not be a qualifier here. This seems like a bait and switch on your part that avoids what the edits are actually about. As to WP:WAR, this is completely unfounded as was WP:SYNTH earlier. I've used repeated versions, tried different citations, etc. The issue is that these laws were passed and the king vetoed them, and historians have written about it which meets the standard of Wikipedia:V,(I would say even exceeds that) and after all this time it's really the one thing you haven't addressed - so WP:NOCON can't apply yet if you are not addressing the topic. Could you please explain your meaning as to why one thing over here has anything to do with the other thing over there? Or else, try working with me here? The cites do in fact say what I am claiming and you could easily change up wording to meet the standard as written by these historians. Progressingamerica (talk) 14:22, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If you'd stop speculating what my intentions are, that might be for the benefit of this discussion. This is the article about abolitionism, not about royal veto. I still don't understand how and where Onuf supports the idea that the intended Virginia laws were relevant for this article. But even if I should have misunderstood Onuf, academic books focusing on abolitionism in the U.S. are the judges for what is relevant for this article and what not. --Rsk6400 (talk) 19:31, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rsk6400: I don't think that is very accurate since the speculative use of WP:SYNTH was introduced by you several replies ago. As for your request of a specific type of book and author, that request was already met. Why did you ignore it my meeting of your request the first time around? I'll take a different approach here, and I've added a few new cites for use. So that the talk page matches the edit made to the article, I'll include what the historians are saying. Perhaps they'll be read this time. Brief biographical snips of some historians included. An entire section for you follows:

What the historians are saying about the Royal Veto of anti-slavery laws

In the book Race and Liberty in the New Nation: Emancipation in Virginia from the Revolution to Nat Turner's Rebellion, historian Eva Sheppard Wolf writes the following, page 23: [8]

Though Lee's act passed, the crown disallowed it and also blocked....

Again:

The proposed 1769 tax was so high that one English factor stationed in Alexandria considered it prohibitive....

Bio: two books concerning slavery, manumission, and race in Virginia [9]

In the Pulitzer prize winning book The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 historian Alan Taylor writes the following, page 20: [10]

To discourage more slave imports, the colony's legislature levied a heavy tax, but the imperial government vetoed it in defense of the interests of British traders.

Bio: has been a professor at the University of California at Davis, where he teaches courses in early North American history, the history of the American West [11]

In A Slaveholders' Union, George Van Cleve writes the following, page 30: [12]

King George III Instructed ...... to disallow any future increase in slave-import taxes......

Again:

He also specifically instructed the Virginia governor that "upon pain of the highest displeasure" the governor should veto any other law

Again:

British policy was to require Virginia to remain open to slave imports, whether Virginia wanted to do so or not.

Bio: George Van Cleve is Scholar-in-Residence in the Department of History at the University of Virginia.

In The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823, historian David Brion Davis writes the following, page 12: [13]

The British Crown had, after all, promoted the African slave trade and vetoed Virginia's efforts to curtail it. Then a royal governor, having no interest in the black population's long-term welfare, had exploited the colonists' powderkeg vulnerability in a highly dangerous way.

Bio from the Organization of American Historians: It is hard to imagine American history without David Brion Davis ... His pathbreaking trilogy, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1966), The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (1975), and The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation (2014), [14] Again:

After moving to Yale University in 1970, Davis published The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823, which won the National Book Award and Bancroft Prize. Yale appointed Davis Sterling Professor of American History on the heels of this achievement.

Bio from Yale: the founder of the Gilder Lehrman Center, David Brion Davis, one of the world’s leading scholars of slavery and abolition in an international context [15]

In History of the United States of America, George Bancroft wrote the following, page 410: [16]

the abrogation of the slave-trade was regarded by the legislature as the necessary preliminary to successful efforts at getting rid of slavery itself.

Again:

on the tenth of December 1770, he issued an instruction, under his own hand, commanding the governor, "upon pain of the highest displeasure, to assent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed."

Bio from Britannica: whose comprehensive 10-volume study of the origins and development of the United States caused him to be referred to as the "father of American history." [17]

In Thomas Jefferson - Westward the Course of Empire, Lawrence S. Kaplan writes the following, page 84: [18]

in the eighteenth century the General Assembly of Virginia had repeatedly voted to restrain the importation of slaves only to be blocked every time by a royal veto.

Bio: Lawrence S. Kaplan was History and University professor emeritus at Kent State University [19]

More than one of these historians keep making reference specifically to King George III's 1770 veto and the threats that were contained in that veto. Here you can find the full text of that veto to read for yourself. The King wrote as follows: [20]

No Additional Duties on Slaves in Virginia
Whereas at a general assembly begun and held in our city of Williamsburg in our colony and dominion of Virginia on the seventh day of November in the tenth year of our reign, two laws were framed and enacted by our governor, council, and House of Burgesses of our said colony and dominion of Virginia, entitled An Act for Laying an Additional Duty upon Slaves Imported into This Colony, and the other An Act for the Better Support of the Contingent Charges of Government, by which said laws additional duties, amounting to fifteen per cent were imposed upon every purchase of slaves imported or brought into that colony over and above a duty of ten per cent payable by former laws then in force; and whereas it hath been represented to us that so considerable an increase upon the duties of slaves imported into our colony of Virginia will have the effect to prejudice and obstruct as well the commerce of this kingdom as the cultivation and improvement of the said colony; whereupon we have thought fit to disallow the first mentioned of the laws, leaving the other, which is of short duration, to expire by its own limitation. It is therefore our will and pleasure that you do not upon pain of our highest displeasure give your assent for the future, without our royal permission first obtained, to any law or laws by which the additional duty of five per cent upon slaves imported, imposed by the last mentioned law, shall be further continued or to any laws whatever by which the duties of ten per cent upon slaves imported into our said colony, payable by laws passed antecedent to the seventh day of November, 1769, shall upon any pretense be increased or by which the importation of slaves shall be in any respect prohibited or obstructed.
Dec. 10, 1770.

I know you keep saying you don't want Jefferson history books around here, you don't want some other history books around here, or the books can't be slavery books they have to specifically be abolition books and only abolition books,(slavery books don't count) but it doesn't really work that way. You can't construct a unicorn for your STONEWALL. There's an overlap in history which is why the Wikipedia article in its long-standing form already includes many of these different types of books. In the references and further reading cites sections there's religion books, there's Andrew Jackson books, there's books cited about specific American states, there's general American History books, there's a book about a college, books cited about other countries, there's books cited about Women's rights, there's Alexander Hamilton books cited, there's already several Jefferson books. If you need to, please take the time to create a WP:RFC, so that books not about abolitionism but instead only about slavery or books about specific people or any others deemed off-topic by you might be removed and half of the article's content can also be removed to meet your standards.

Perfection is not required and these are all extremely good historians; good abolitionism and slavery historians. And all of these historians are in agreement. Give WP:FIXFIRST a try it's a good one. Progressingamerica (talk) 02:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Progressingamerica: Impressive as your quotations are, I still can't see a serious connection between the tax and the abolitionist movement. So now, please stop edit warring (yes, you are edit warring, i.e. repeatedly restoring your favourite version, albeit with some changes). To move forward, I see two possibilities: You could explain to me why you think that I don't read Onuf correctly, or you can seek WP:conflict resolution. But while there is no consenus, the last stable version will have to stand (see WP:NOCON). --Rsk6400 (talk) 17:34, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]


(@Rjensen:)

Thank you for your edits in the article earlier on this. I was curious, in the history books you have written did you ever research this topic? One of the concerns raised was of a particular type of phrasing I used, but I cannot just cut and paste entries from other works not in the public domain. Perhaps a better phrasing based on the many cites I provided could help here? Progressingamerica (talk) 15:14, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I taught the history of slavery for many years and tried to keep up with the scholarship, but I never published any major research studies on slavery or abolition. Rjensen (talk) 16:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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