Talk:George M. Dallas

Dallas City Namesake?
I took out statement that the city of Dallas was named after GMD--according to Dallas Historical Society, it is unlikely that the city was named after George Dallas. Glendoremus 05:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Britannica Eleventh Ed.
DALLAS, GEORGE MIFFLIN (1792-1864), American statesman and diplomat, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 10th of July 1792. He graduated at Princeton in 1810 at the head of his class; then studied law in the office of his father, Alexander J. Dallas, the financier, and was admitted to the bar in 1813. In the same year he accompanied Albert Gallatin, as his secretary, to Russia, and in 1814 returned to the United States as the bearer of important dispatches from the American peace commissioners at Ghent. He practised law in New York and Philadelphia, was chosen mayor of Philadelphia in 1828, and in. 1829 was appointed by President Jackson, whom he had twice warmly supported for the presidency, United States attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania, a position long held by his father. From 1831 to 1833 he was a Democratic member of the United States Senate, in which he advocated a compromise tariff and strongly supported Jacksons position in regard to nullification. On the bank question he was at first at variance with the president; in January 1832 he presented in the Senate a memorial from the banks president, Nicholas Biddle, and its managers, praying for a recharter, and subsequently he was chairman of a committee which reported a bill re-chartering the institution for a fifteen-year period. Afterwards, however, his views changed and he opposed the bank. From 1833 to 1835 Dallas was attorney-general of Pennsylvania, and from 1835 to 1839 was minister to Rus ~a. During the following years he was engaged in a long stru gle with James Buchanan for party leadership in Pennsylvania. He was vicepresident of the United States from 1845 to 1849, but the appointment of Buchanan as secretary of state at once shut him off from all hope of party patronage or influence in the Polk administration, and he came to be looked upon as the leader of that body of conservative Democrats of the North, who, while they themselves chafed at the domination of Southern leaders, were disposed to disparage all anti-slavery agitation. By his casting vote at a critical period during the debate in the Senate on the tariff bill of 1846, he irretrievably lost his influence with the protectionist element of his native state, to whom he had given assurances of his support of the Tyler tariff of 1842. For several years after his retirement from office, he devoted himself to his law practie, and in 1856 succeeded James Buchanan as United States minister to England, where he remained until relieved by Charles Francis Adams in May 1861. During this trying period he represented his country with ability and tact, making every endeavour to strengthen the Union cause in Great Britain. He died at Philadelphia on the 1st of December 1864. He wrote a biographical memoir for an edition of his fathers writings, which was published in 1871. His Diary of his residence in St Petersburg and London was published in Philadelphia in 1892.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. Brittannica was correct about his position 1829-31--U.S. attorney for E.D. Pennsylvania, same as his late father. I'm surprise the cite, U.S. Senate Art & History got the position title wrong (federal prosecutors are not district attorneys.Jweaver28 (talk) 17:58, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced reference to Democratic Party
Quoth the article:

"After the War of 1812 ended, Pennsylvania's political climate was chaotic, with two factions in that state's Democratic party vying for control."

I know this is taken right from the US Senate website (there's a reference), but it can't be right. The Democratic Party did not exist in the 1810s. I'm going to change this to the Democratic-Republican party, which is I assume what's meant? --Jfruh (talk) 00:43, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually< I'm going to hold off because the rest of the section refers to events in the late 1820s. But I'm still dubious about the reference -- maybe the period under discussion is actually the early to mid 1820s, when the D-R party was dissolving?

Not his father, but rather his father's father.
Quoth the article:

>> Family and early life >> George Dallas was born on July 10, 1792, to Alexander James Dallas and Arabella Maria Smith Dallas (born Devon, England) in Philadelphia.[1] His father, Dr Robert Dallas, born in Kingston, Jamaica,...


 * The 2nd sentence here seems to clearly say George Dallas's father is Dr. Robert Dallas. Shouldn't it say his *grandfather* (or more specifically his father's father) is Dr. Robert Dallas??

--KS on Wikipedia (talk) 17:22, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Not only that but his father was Secretary of the Treasury, not Secretary of War and his grandfather was neither Secretary of the Treasury or War (just compare with the lists of Secretaries of the Treasury and Secretaries of War here in Wikipedia) Overlordnat1 (talk) 02:07, 17 February 2021 (UTC)