Talk:Bank War/Archives/2020

Several Issues that Require Revision and Improvement

Having spent a fair amount of time reading this article in its entirety, I have found several issues that could be improved. The core of the article is passable and demonstrates factual competency, but there are some significant errors and omissions that require revision. The “good article” status encourages others to make this entry even better and since I have recently published a scholarly monograph on this subject, I believe that I would make a strong candidate to improve many parts of this entry. Over the next few days I plan to make some revisions based on the comments I have written below. To avoid a tit-for-tat Wikipedia war, I would politely ask any page watchers or contributors to wait a few days. When I am finished with the revisions, I am confident that the final product will be much improved from where it currently stands. I also wish to explain my motives: Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites out there. Students, professors, and many others use the site all the time. Since I regard the Bank War to be an important topic, I want the best, most comprehensive, accurate, and current information to be easily accessible. The chief criticisms concern the pro-Jackson orientation and tone of the article; factual inaccuracies and misleading statements; the length of the article, particularly in terms of its arguably excessive use of quotes and citations. In no particular order of importance, here are the points that should be revised:

- some sentences are wordy or are unclear. They should be rephrased.

- some of the subheadings could be renamed. I do wonder about the decision to organize this entry according to Jackson’s annual messages to Congress. Sure, at least the first one in 1829 is important, but are they deserving of entire subheadings?

- As another person in this discussion pointed out, the spellings should be more uniform. It is currently written as B.U.S. or BUS. I will suggest BUS.

- I suggest making a separate historiography section

- Pro-Jackson orientation: I think there’s a compelling case to be made that the overall thrust and tone of this article leans toward the Jacksonian side, undermining Wikipedia’s commitment to a neutral point of view. Certain claims in this article that support the Jacksonian position are worded strongly, and unnecessarily so. I will point these out in my revisions in the “View History” tab once I have made them. What has led me to this conclusion? The choice of words comes across as sympathetic to the Jacksonian position of states’ rights. And with the notable exception of citations from works by Bray Hammond and Richard Hofstadter, most of the current citations reference works by Robert Remini, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Jon Meachem, Sean Wilentz, all of whom profess varying degrees of sympathy toward the Jacksonian position. To meet Wikipedia’s position of neutral point of view, these citations should be balanced with citations by Daniel Walker Howe, Donald Ratcliffe, Walter B. Smith, Jean Alexander Wilburn, and Thomas Payne Govan. I have already included them in the Bibliography and Further Reading Sections.

- Length of this entry. At several points in this entry, the reader encounters details that are extraneous, tangential, and unnecessary, giving the impression of a conversation of insider baseball. Do we really need to know all of the back-and-forth regarding the hiring and firing of William Duane? Sure, it is an important moment in the Bank War, but it could definitely be condensed. It is as if the creator of this material was trying to recapitulate what a book (or several books) say on a topic, but the larger point gets lost. And keep in mind that readers have already have a bibliography and further reading section if they want these details. In addition, the entry gives full names when certain characters have already been introduced (ex: Nicholas Biddle and Henry Clay). Some names and concepts should have hyperlinks. As another person in this discussion pointed out, there is an (over)abundance of quotes. It is one thing to have supporting evidence and citations, which everyone would expect, but many of these quotes do not add any particular artistic flavor to the text. In other words, the same point can be made without the quote. Some sections have brief digressions into areas that are not entirely relevant. I have found this in the following subheadings: “Resurrection of a National Banking System”; “‘Jackson and Reform’: Implications for the BUS” and a few other sections. In its current iteration, this entry is about 10,000 words with over 260 notes. Might some of these notes be consolidated? Might the entry be condensed and include some material that is missing? As a point of comparison, the Wikipedia entry for the American Civil War is about 16,000 with about the same number of notes. The American Revolution entry is 18,000 but has less notes (213). The Civil Rights Movement is 23,000 words but has less notes.

- Grammatical issues: some words are capitalized that should not be capitalized. The passive voice appears more than once.

- factual inaccuracies or misleading statements: the bill sent to Jackson’s desk in mid-1832 actually DID have modifications, contrary to what is implied from the Henry Clay quote. See Campbell’s recent work. The economic contraction from the fall of 1833 to the summer of 1834 was not “serious” and “protracted” as the introduction currently states. See Campbell, who cites the study of economic historian Jacob Meerman. Confusion of capital and deposits under the “Jackson’s dismantling of the BUS” subheading. Confusion of private banks and state banks. use of the term “Democrat” when “Jacksonian” would be more historically accurate. This is because the term “Democrat” did not have a uniform usage among President Jackson’s followers until roughly 1834 (some states started using the terms earlier than others).

- I notice there are citations to James McPherson, Elizabeth Varon, and Paul Brown. All of them are fantastic, prolific historians, but the Bank War is not their specialty. The article also cites encyclopedia entries written by Bates and Olson. To me this seems a bit redundant; that is, to have a Wikipedia entry that cites other encyclopedias, which in turn rely on secondary sources that are founded on primary sources (this adds another layer of distance between the reader and the original primary source, and yes, I am aware of Wikipedia’s policy of no original research). I suggest placing Bates and Olson in the Further Reading section.

- looking at the “View History,” it seems that this entry is primarily the work of two contributors: the Display Name 99 (William) and 36hourblock. To honor the spirit of Wikipedia, I am hoping that others can contribute

- The Panic of 1837 subheading: this barely meets an acceptable standard. It could and should definitely cite Peter Temin, Peter Rousseau, and Jessica Lepler.

- I wish to reiterate the feedback I left earlier regarding the section called “‘Jackson and Reform’: Implications for the BUS”

- I wonder about the quotes from James Parton…his book is from 1860, before the historical profession began to adopt more professionalized standards. Books from this era were known to take very strong stances. Steviebill83 (talk) 16:32, 24 March 2019 (UTC)Steviebill83

Steviebill83, I have just now noticed your contributions and read your talk page message. You obviously made a lot of changes in the last several days. I intend to review them all, which will take some time. I may alter some of the changes that you made, but will not revert if undone, and will use the talk page wherever possible. I do want to make mention of a few things right now which jump out at me.

• You appear to have removed Brown from the Bibliography. You can't do this without also removing the citations to him, because right now they're coming out as Harvard errors. You haven't stated a compelling reason for not including him, so I' going to have to re-add his name to the Bibliography. This may not be his specialty, but there are only three citations to him anyway. There is a similar case with Varon and McPherson. Both of these historians specialize in the Civil War and slavery. So, they are cited when we analyze the possible connection between slavery and the Bank War. If I'm not mistaken, there are only two citations to McPherson, which go to the same page. It's not as if we rely on him for the crux of the article.

• 36hourblock has not edited this article since about December 2016. This user got into a major dispute with me and a handful of other early U.S. history editors and is no longer active on Wikipedia. Until now, I've been basically the only person editing the article for over two years. Helpful contributions from other users, such as yourself, are always welcome, but there is nothing that we can do if only one or two people are interested in editing a particular article.

• The Panic of 1837 is a totally separate event with its own article. We don't need anything more than a basic summary here about what that was about or of the economic affairs in the Van Buren administration.

• Parton is one of the most important Jacksonian historians-and not an altogether favorable one either. I don't believe that we should refuse to take his perspectives into account simply because of when he wrote. I'd also like to note that you added a book written by a historian called Catterall that was published in 1903 to the Bibliography. That isn't exactly modern either.

• You added a number of books to the Bibliography which are marked as not being cited within the body of the article. They be relevant and written by qualified historians, but it is standard Wikipedia practice to only include books which are cited within the article under the Bibliography and to place other pertinent materials which could be cited but are not, at least for the moment, in the "Further reading" section. As someone with a very respectable amount of knowledge about the subject but, judging from your editing history, very little experience on Wikipedia, this is something to take note of.

• Regarding your concern about the article's bias, this is important. The bulk of the sourcing was probably carried out by me. I relied mostly on biographies of Jackson, and biographies of any subject tend to take a favorable view of that person. The citations to Hofstadter and Hammond are, as you pointed out, notable exceptions. But I'm more concerned with what we say in the article and how we say it than whether or how often we cite particular historians. But I'm interested in working with you to resolve any such issues, and need time to see exactly what changes you've made.

• You also mention the length of the article as a concern. Per WP:Article size, basically, the maximum length of an article is 100 kB. The Bank War article is at 54kB right now, and was at 58kB before you started editing it. There are several featured articles (the highest level an article can reach) that I've worked on that are well above that. (You can check my userpage for examples. Wikipedia's biography of Jackson is at 99 kB, almost twice as long as this article. It was only a little bit shorter at the time that it was a featured article candidate, and during the review process, no major concerns were raised about its length.) I don't want to include any unnecessary or distracting information, but I wouldn't get too caught up in worrying about how long the article is, at least not for a long time. You did decrease the size of the article by a significant amount, so I'm guessing that if I have any issues with the edits that you've made, they will be here.

I look forward to working with you to improve the article. I will in the coming days review your contributions at length. Display name 99 (talk) 17:46, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Hello 99, thanks for your points. I'm still working on some of the edits. I hope to respond to some of your points in the coming days. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steviebill83 (talk • contribs) 17:59, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Steviebill83, I'd appreciate it if you hold off on making any further changes for a little while. You have made an extraordinary amount of alterations to the article in a very short period of time. This is especially extraordinary given that this is a good article and that there was no talk page discussion. Let's just work with what you've already changed for now. Display name 99 (talk) 21:42, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Hello Display name 99 (talk) 21:42, 26 March 2019 (UTC)...I guess. I would not say that I have made an "extraordinary" amount of alterations. That sounds like an exaggeration. And I already explained my motivations for working on this article. It may seem like the article has undergone significant revisions, but I have no doubt that already, the article has been cleaned up quite a bit. Please compare the way the article reads now compared to the way it was a week ago. Have you not seen a significant improvement? I would consider this before you ask me to stop my revisions as there is nothing malicious behind them, and indeed, I have left the core of the wikipedia entry in tact. The writing is more clear, smooth, and direct. Many of the sections looked like a mess and had a lot of repetition. You are beginning to come off like you have ownership over this article and I do not see how this is merited given that I have wrote a scholarly work on this subject and to my knowledge, you have not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steviebill83 (talk • contribs)

In my professional judgment, the "good article" status was not warranted, which is another reason I have elected to edit.

There are A LOT more sources in the bibliography and further reading sections (I agree with your point that I may have put some of those books in the wrong place but I have not yet had a chance to respond to your points given my busy schedule). Before I started editing, many of the sections looked like a mess and had a lot of repetition. A final point...I have made note of your extensive disagreements with 36hourblock from 2016 and without weighing in on the merits of either side, I absolutely do not wish to get involved in a back and forth with you like that one I just described. I already made that clear. So again, I would ask you to consider how the article currently stands compared to the way it was before you ask me to stop revising. Thanks for your time Steviebill83 (talk) 22:04, 26 March 2019 (UTC)Steviebill83

Steviebill83, you have made 162 edits just a few days. That's already more than all of the edits that 36hourblock made to this article over several years. By all definitions, that is extraordinary. I do not want to try to assume ownership. No editor, scholarly article or not, has that right. Rather, I want you to be more cautious about altering and removing sourced material and to consider consensus. In other words, you don't own the article either, and you shouldn't be able to make drastic changes to reliably-cited materials over the objections of other editors. Display name 99 (talk) 22:50, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Also, I don't see anything malicious in your edits. I think you mean well, and all Wikipedia editors are required to assume good faith. In sum, I think that the content that you added to the article has helped, the changes to the wording, so far as I have seen, have done neither much good nor much bad, and that you have lessened the article's quality by removing content. I don't mean intentionally, but nevertheless, I think that this has been the result. Much of what you claimed to be repetitive is, in my opinion, not really repetitive. Rather, it takes what was already said and either goes into greater detail or takes a quote from a historian to summarize it. I understand your concerns that the article relies too much on just what a few historians have to say. That's why I haven't complained about you adding material from new scholars. You've also added some important information that was not in the article before. But then you also removed some which was already there. Display name 99 (talk) 22:56, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

One more thing. I've noticed that you've added a number of citations to Campbell 2019. From what you revealed on your talk page, I deduced that you are the author of this piece. Before citing it again, I encourage you to read WP:SELFCITE. What this policy essentially says is that citing scholarly works that you yourself have written is not strictly prohibited, but that adding a large number of citations to that work is discouraged. There are already a handful of citations to your work within this article. Removing them would be both unjust and a violation of Wikipedia policy, but to avoid a conflict of interest, I think that you should leave the number where it is for now and if you plan on adding anything else to the article, try to get it from other sources. Thanks. Display name 99 (talk) 23:27, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Dear Display name 99 (talk) 23:27, 26 March 2019 (UTC), I can tell already by your statements and actions that you are determined to battle me even over the smallest things. This is unfortunate, I think, because another approach would just be to accept what I have written as an improvement on the wikipedia entry. While I would not say that your tone is combative, your approach is by making the statements you have. You strike me as a bit of a litigious and argumentative person by challenging me on these edits. Perhaps you find that you can "win" arguments by challenging small things and by understanding all of the ins and outs of wikipedia guidelines. But to your points...you've said I've made 162 edits in less than a week. Okay, but I doubt that's "extraordinary." How about looking at the differences between overall bytes. What was the byte number when I started and what was it before you started undoing my edits?

Perhaps you are unwilling to consider changes to the entry because you yourself have created this page? I will say again, for the reasons I gave at the outset, that this is not deserving of "good article" status, William.

Please explain to me your qualifications for you to revert and undue my edits. Please explain to me how you are an expert on this subject. All I can see is that you've read Remini, Wilentz, and a few other authors, but have you published peer reviewed material on this? I'd bet the answer is "no" so why are you picking a fight over this?

I'll note you didn't address my other points about deposit banks and state banks versus private banks.

The way the entry was written was not very well written at all. I already made those points. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steviebill83 (talk • contribs) 00:28, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Steviebill83, your response shows that you are regrettably developing a bit of an ego and are becoming quite haughty. You say that another approach would just be to accept what I have written as an improvement on the wikipedia entry. Um, why?

- Because, William, it should have been abundantly clear by now that I have expertise in this topic and your expertise is sorely lacking. I don't know about you, but I don't wage fights over topics in which I lack expertise. You wrote an entire wikipedia entry (or most of one for that matter) that relied way too heavily on pro-Jackson sources, contained factual inaccuracies, was missing A LOT of references to other scholars in the field that I've had to spend a great deal of time adding, relied on McPherson, Varon, and Brown when this is not their principal field of expertise, way too many notes, way too many details, quotes that did not add much, tangential information, and thought it was worthy of a "good article" status. When I pointed this out in an effort to try to improve the entry, you reversed a good many of my changes merely because you had a found a citation to support them, without realizing that previous authors may have been wrong about something. The only rational explanation at this point is that you have a proprietary stake in this piece and can't bear to see someone else write about it better than you can. This is anti-intellectualism at its finest.

I don't have to accept anything that you wrote as an improvement if I don't want to. I am under no obligation to regard something as an improvement to a Wikipedia article just because some hotshot professor wrote it. - I suppose not, but if your judgment was truly fair and impartial, you would have recognized the vast improvements.

This leads me into my next point. On Wikipedia, we don't care who you are or what you've done. It doesn't matter if you've written one book or twenty, or if you've made 20,000 edits or 200. Every editor has as much say as the next one. People who have written a lot in a certain field, either on or off Wikipedia, might be treated with a certain level of respect, and might sometimes be consulted. But their opinions do not count for more in a debate. Wikipedia is built on consensus. It isn't hierarchical. In addition, academic titles are impossible to verify. -- you could easily verify mine at this point since you know the name of the book I've written. And on that point, why don't you actually read my book, and ask yourself if I know what I'm talking about? Once you do, maybe you'll figure out that it was QUITE FOOLISH of you to challenge me on all of this stuff and reverse my edits.

See for example the Essjay controversy. If you expect people on Wikipedia to simply accept everything you do because you're an accomplished academic in the field and have published material on it, I think it's time now to either adjust your attitude or leave the site. Your responses have been increasingly focused not on your changes themselves and my objections to them as spelled out on the talk page and in my edit summaries but instead on unrelated things including your apparent shock that I would have the audacity to challenge you. This suggests that you don't really have anything of substance. -- you know that last sentence is flat out wrong and it does not dignify a response.

While I am the primary contributor to this page, I am not the creator. 36hourblock was the primary contributor to the article until he left Wikipedia. I took over the article afterwards and adjusted and expanded on it significantly. While many if not most of the details in the article come from me, the foundation and basic structure of the article are left over from him.

I didn't address your point about deposit banks v. state banks for two reasons. The first was because I think you may have been correct, and the second was because I hadn't gotten to examining your changes in that part of the article yet. You still haven't explained what gives you the right to remove huge amounts of properly sourced material in a very brief period of time when another editor objects to it, aside from your claim that you're an expert, which on Wikipedia is worth nothing. You also didn't address my point about the length of the article not being a major concern. So please don't complain that I haven't addressed one of your points, because I can certainly point out examples from you. Display name 99 (talk) 01:25, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

-- Round and round we go. I didn't remove HUGE amounts of material. Why do you keep exaggerating? I pointed out that the Civil Rights movement had far more words but fewer notes. The entry was a mess. Your behavior is proving why some people think Wikipedia is bogus (even if that's not a very well informed perspective). You waged a fight here without considering that there may be people out there who know far more about this topic than you do. I'm moving on from this because I'm busy and have lots of responsibilities. So I guess you get to declare victory, right? I'm sure that's all you really care about. Hollow words you gave earlier about trying to be collaborative. And yes, I have taken this personally if you haven't figured this out because I was making this article much better and you decided that you were going to reverse things. Why don't you let someone else examine all the edits I made and see if I was heading in the right direction? It's insulting and infuriating beyond belief that you would reverse them. Let the record stand that you picked a fight with 36hourblock and you've picked a fight with me. I'd be curious, William, do you have a doctorate in history? Have you published in peer reviewed journals and university presses? Hide behind Wikipedia's arcane rules if you must (and I'm sure you will), but you've got some nerve telling other historians who have these things what makes for good history. By the way, William, saying that you intend to review all of my changes strikes me as not abiding by good faith. I'll say again that you started this conflict because you asked me to stop my edits. Uh, excuse me, why in the world do I have to ask you for permission for editing something that I've dedicated MANY YEARS OF MY LIFE TO???!!! Steviebill83 (talk) 03:17, 27 March 2019 (UTC)Steveibill83

Dear William Display name 99 (talk), Throughout this process you asked me to a) hold off on revisions until you had a chance to examine them (which sounds to me like I need to ask your permission) and b) you reverted some (but not all) of my editorial changes. In other words, you have assumed some authority over what goes on in this page, almost like a gatekeeper. If that is case, I am curious...upon what grounds do you assert that authority? I'm sure that you will send me some hyperlink explaining Wikipedia's policy because it is evident that you are well versed in their policies. But besides that, do you have some sort of academic credentials, editorial or publishing experience (preferably in peer reviewed outlets), etc, that would warrant such authority? To phrase this another way, you made a judgment call based on aesthetic taste, but who is to say that yours is any better than mine when it comes to this particular article? You may very well be qualified to speak in general terms on a whole number of topics. But I am being very frank and honest here in saying I highly question your qualifications to speak authoritatively *on this topic.* I've given you plenty of reasons already in previous comments, but here's another one. You did not seem to know who Catterall was when we were discussing the years in which certain books were produced. Yes, especially on this topic, a lot of solid material has been published several decades ago and Catterall is still cited as an authority on this topic. But if my gut feeling is correct that you are unfamiliar with Catterall, might that be another reason to question your ability to edit this article? Your bio says that you were born in 1999, and if that is the case, the oldest you could be is twenty years old. So let me get this straight...a twenty-year old person whose primary interest, according to his bio, is the Catholic Church, is overturning a stylistic and editorial decision made by someone else who has published in peer reviewed journals and has a scholarly monograph on this subject that took many, many years to put together? I'm sure when you see how it is phrased in this way, we are bordering on the absurd. Steviebill83 (talk) 06:38, 27 March 2019 (UTC)Steviebill83

Steviebill83, the article was reduced in size by about 7% over three days. If you consider the fact that you added some content to the article in addition to removing some, I'd say that you probably deleted about 10% of what was previously in the article in just a few days. Sorry, but that's a lot. Again, nobody on Wikipedia gives a shit about your doctorate. As I've said repeatedly, I don't have an issue with you adding content from other historians to present a more fair or balanced perspective or adjusting material that you consider inaccurate. I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on factual matters (like private v. state banks) while under the assumption that you are in fact who you say you are, which still cannot be proven. I do however have an issue with you removing huge amounts of relevant, factual, and properly sourced material with very little explanation and no talk page discussion. Notice that I have kept the additions that you made as well as some of your syntax changes. The hiring of Duane for example is intricately connected with the Bank War and deserves a detailed discussion. And so does the background concerning the Bank's history before Jackson took office. I see no justification for why you would remove that. There are other examples of you removing stuff without any explanation. You haven't done much to explain why these things shouldn't be here, especially after I pointed out that this article is well below Wikipedia's length limit. Instead, you've just waived your PhD in my face over and over again. The most ridiculous part of your response was saying that "if [my] judgment was truly fair and impartial, you would have recognized the vast improvements." Anyone who believes that there can be no honest disagreement about how good their contributions are is clearly not well suited for the collaborative environment of Wikipedia. This isn't completely on topic, but I do hope that whenever one of your students happens to disagree with or question something that you're saying, you treat them respectfully and don't do what you're doing now, which is to shout them down and demand that they listen to you because you're more intelligent than they are.

As far as previous authors being "wrong," in your own scholarly research, you may be used to treating them that way. But on Wikipedia, we have to represent the views of all major scholars, including those who may disagree with you. And while opinions expressed by people like Schlesinger and Remini should certainly be left up for debate, their books are considered factually reliable and are thus suitable for use.

Probably the most laughable part of your gigantic response was suggesting that I buy your book. As soon as you get into an argument or a debate with someone and that person starts trying to sell you something, you can pretty clearly tell that things aren't going well for them. I also noticed that you replaced a reference to Parton with one to your own book, a questionable decision in my opinion. If you're just here to advertise your book, you can go.

I didn't intend to exert any authority over you. My request for you to stop editing was simply a request, not an order. I would have no authority to give such an order. I do however believe that major contributions to articles, especially articles which, whether you like it or not, have been recognized as good or "featured," should be made in coordination with the primary contributors at the article. The reason why I wanted you to slow down was because I wanted us to work together to improve the article instead of you getting rid of things just because you felt like it. Display name 99 (talk) 15:21, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Also, my bio doesn't say that my "primary interest" is the Catholic Church. In fact, is says that while I do frequently edit articles related to the Catholic Church, I do so less often than early U.S. history articles. Display name 99 (talk) 15:25, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Dear William: Display name 99 (talk) Let the record stand that you did not answer my question about Catterall. And you did not deny that you are 20 years old at the most, assuming your bio is correct. And you have not given me a direct answer to the question that I have posed to you several times, which is: upon what grounds do you assert authority or at least the ability to reverse my edits? You're not giving me an answer, most likely, because you do not like how the answer looks: that unless you're an extremely precocious college student with genius level status, you lack the experience to make these judgment calls.

I would submit to you, William, that without the academic credentials and publishing experience I have alluded to, you have absolutely no business telling me what is important and what is not important; what is well sourced and what is not well sourced; what is relevant and what is irrelevant, etc.

By reversing many of my edits, you clearly had no attention to be collaborative.

It's not about waving my PhD in your face. It's about saying that someone with a PhD in history and with expertise and publications in the topic s/he is trying to edit should, in most cases, be deferred to on these matters of judgment calls. You say that no one gives a shit about a doctorate, which may be technically true in terms of Wikipedia's policies, but isn't Wikipedia also about getting the best scholarly information out there, and if so, aren't the chances extremely likely that someone with a doctorate is one of the most likely people to get the best scholarly information out there? If there are other Wikipedia entries on climate change or Thomas Jefferson, don't you think a whole lot of people with doctorates who have published academic articles and books on those subjects would make some of the best contributors?

I'm not here to sell my book or advertise it (clearly I would not have gone into the humanities in academia if I cared about selling or making money) so let me clarify that I was asking you to get the book through interlibrary loan or some other means.

And for the second time, you have advised me to leave Wikipedia because I don't agree with your aesthetic tastes. Steviebill83 (talk) 16:21, 27 March 2019 (UTC)Steviebill83

Steviebill83, I am not denying that you would be an excellent person to get good scholarly information out there. My problem, which I state yet again, is that you're getting rid of good scholarly information.

What you as a Jacksonian scholar think is important or relevant is not always exactly what other Jacksonian scholars think is important or unimportant. We're not going to privilege your view over theirs. It's important for Wikipedia articles to represent what all major scholars have to say about a particular subject. Here's an essay that I recommend you reading. I probably should've given it to you earlier, but here it is. Sections, 2, 6, and 7 are the ones which I find to be most relevant here, and I encourage you to read them. The views expressed there are from my experience generally accepted standards of behavior on Wikipedia.

I'll answer your questions. No, I have not read Catterall. But it's one book out of many on the subject, and so I don't understand why you're so concerned with that one in particular compared to all of the other books which I may or may not have read. And you said with reference to Parton that older books aren't always the best to rely on because they tend to take strong stances. Is this true with Catterall as well? Because if it is, it would be a bit hypocritical. As for my age, I am 20. I am an undergraduate student majoring in History. I exert only the authority of a Wikipedia editor, which is truly all I need.

And I didn't advise you to leave Wikipedia because you disagreed with my "aesthetic tastes." I did it because your belief that your experience and real world-credentials entitle you to have the final say in all content disputes regarding this subject matter, which is not how Wikipedia works. It was for a lack of concern about Wikipedia practice that I advised you to consider leaving. Let's set that straight. Display name 99 (talk) 21:31, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi William Display name 99, I think we might be getting to a better place in terms of mutual understanding and realize it may have been unwise and unhelpful for me to be combative about this. I have briefly read, and will read again, what you have sent about expert editors on Wikipedia. Thank you for that. Steviebill83 (talk) 03:00, 28 March 2019 (UTC)Steviebill83

Display name 99 I'm beginning to feel more comfortable about the way this article is shaping up. There is one small thing--one word, really--that should be changed in my view, and I'm proceeding more cautiously this time around before I make the edit myself. Under the subheading "Search for a Treasury Secretary," there is one sentence that reads: "Meanwhile, Jackson sought to prepare his official cabinet for the coming removal of the Bank's capital." The word "capital" is incorrect. It should be "deposits," and more specifically "public deposits," since these were different from private deposits. This is because capital and deposits are classified differently in terms of accounting. As the name suggests, deposits are what savers deposit in the BUS. Capital has a variety of definitions but in the context of a bank, or any corporation, it refers to shares of stock. A bank raises capital by selling shares. In my own research, I know this for a fact having looked at many of the bank's financial statements, presented in congressional reports like HR 460 and HR 121 and Sen Doc 17. But those are primary sources so we can't cite those. I see there are citations to Remini and Wellman. I don't have those books in front of me so I can't comment on whether Remini and/or Wellman were using the terms correctly, but I know sometimes historians who don't have backgrounds in economics are liable to confuse things like this. If you'd like, I can try to track down a secondary source that gives definitions of these terms--I'm sure Howard Bodenhorn, J. Van Fenstermaker, and any number of other folks would suffice.Steviebill83 (talk) 09:22, 28 March 2019 (UTC)Steviebill83

Steviebill83, thank you for your note. I checked Remini, and he uses the word "deposits," so I decided to go ahead and change it. I trust you to make factual corrections like this in the article on your own. The only problem that I have is with removing sourced and relevant information. We are able to cite primary sources on Wikipedia but they generally have to be accessible. If your primary source is locked away in an archive somewhere that only professional historians go to, it's best to find something else. But if you can link to a primary source on a reliable website or Google Books, or cite an edited collection of primary sources, like a person's personal papers, it's fine to cite it. Display name 99 (talk) 12:35, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Display name 99 I think the small section on the Panic of 1837 can be much better. I did indicate this earlier in my initial thoughts. The first two sentences of this section strike me as very problematic. How do we know it was reckless? That's only in retrospect. And I've never heard of railroads being in the discussion as part of the cause of this panic. The person that wrote this might be confusing this with later panics in the nineteenth century. The first railroad in the US, the Baltimore and Ohio, only came about in the late-1820s, and I know from Richard White's book, Railroaded, and many other books, including William Cronon's, that railroads did not become a significant part of the US economy until the mid-19th century and especially after the Civil War. The economic bubble that burst in 1837 had a lot to do with the expansion of land, cotton, and slavery funded by state banks in the Old Southwest in the absence of the regulatory powers of the BUS. I would like to rewrite this section because I believe I can make it much better and more historically accurate. What leads me to believe this? I recognize this may look like I'm tooting my own horn, but I have done quite a bit of research into the Panic of 1837. Other than this article, it is the only other article in Wikipedia in which I am on record making improvements (in fact I even wrote about the experience about how I improved it). More importantly, I wrote a 10,000 word, peer reviewed encyclopedia article for Oxford University Press. It is cited in the Panic of 1837 Wikipedia entry and you can find it here: http://oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore-9780199366439-e-399?rskey=d6fAzI&result=1 If one wants to find the full article, try this: http://www.historianstevecampbell.com/uploads/4/4/6/5/44657359/campbell_transatlantic_financial_crisis_of_1837_oup.pdf But rather than drawing undue attention to myself, I propose making edits to cite some of the key historians and economists who have worked on this: Peter Temin, Jessica Lepler, Peter Rousseau, Jane Knodell, Peter Austin, Alasdair Roberts, and others. As it currently stands, this section only has the citation to the Olson encyclopedia article. This may very well be a good entry, but I'm not sure as I've never read it. In any case, I do feel I can make this section better without making it substantially longer, but wanted to post this before I went ahead and started making changes. I won't eliminate the citation to the Olson encyclopedia article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steviebill83 (talk • contribs) 01:33, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Steviebill83, please feel free to revise the section. Because this is an article on the Bank War, I don't think we need more than 2-3 paragraphs on it at the most, and for the same reason I suggest you try to relate as much of the information as you can back to the Bank War. Display name 99 (talk) 13:15, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Steviebill83, thank you for your expansion of the Panic of 1837 section. It looks fairly good. Citation number 19 in this article is to "Goodrich 1970." There is no corresponding source in either the Bibliography or Further reading, and I can't tell what it goes to. If you added this citation, can you please add the source to the Bibliography? Thank you. Display name 99 (talk) 21:05, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Display name 99 (talk) Sure, it is my pleasure. And the Goodrich citation is fixed, with the original publication date. Steviebill83 (talk) 03:57, 3 April 2019 (UTC)Steviebill83

Display name 99 (talk) Hi William, I notice a discrepancy between the sentence associated with citation #63 and citation #71 in this entry. I also noticed that you were trying to reconcile this point as you were editing this entry so I believe I have a viable solution. Citation #63 is to Baptist, p. 228. Citation #71 is to Campbell, p. 49. They are conflicting statements because Baptist says for certain that the BUS deployed financial resources in service of the Adams campaign while Campbell states that these were *rumors* even denied by those who were loyal to Jackson. Comparing Baptist's work to Campbell's, it seems that Campbell's is more detailed and I would personally go with Campbell's, but I will leave that up to you. Why take Campbell's version of events over Baptist's? As I suggested before in a previous comment, Baptist's book, while praiseworthy on a number of levels, does not have the Bank of the United States as its main focus. Baptist is covering slavery from the early republic all the way up to the Civil War and the Bank only appears in a chapter or two. In contrast, Campbell's book is a specialized monograph with the Bank War as its main focus. Furthermore, it is clear from looking at the endnotes of each book that Campbell has consulted more sources. Endnote #26 in Baptist's book (p. 228) cites just two letters from one book of letters (the McGrane edited volume). But Endnote #6 in Campbell's book (p. 49) cites nine letters total, including McGrane's, but goes beyond that with references to the Andrew Jackson Papers and Massachusetts Historical Society. Given the discrepancy, I'd highly recommend eliminating the sentence that begins with "Many branches..." that is associated with citation #63 relating to the Baptist work (it's contradicted by the later sentence in the next section that should remain). Thanks. Steviebill83 (talk) (UTC)Steviebill83

Steviebill83, hello. I noticed this contradiction but originally decided to keep both things under the belief that certain branches of the Bank had favored Adams but that the level to which they did was often exaggerated. After seeing your post, I consulted the source for the Baptist book. Baptist cites two letters in the Biddle correspondence: one from Biddle and one from William B. Lewis. The correspondence that he cites is online and is actually already cited in the Bibliography of this article. In Biddle's letter, he predictably denies that the Bank intervened in the 1828 election. In Lewis's letter to Biddle, he states that Jackson had been led to believe that the Bank meddled in the election but in no way characterizes these rumors as true. In other words, I could find nothing in the source that Baptist cites to justify his claim that any, let alone "many," branches of the Bank deployed financial resources on behalf of Adams. I have therefore removed that sentence from the article. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Display name 99 (talk) 14:39, 3 June 2019 (UTC)