Talk:Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Juneteenth
"...Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to proclaim the war had ended and so had slavery (in the Confederate states)" Parens unnecessary; war not ended; Gen Order#3 freed slaves in Texas only :WP is junk. Sadsaque (talk) 21:33, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Democratic Senators that voted for the 13th amendment
Based on https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/38-1/s134#details there were 3 Democratic Senators that voted in favor of the 13th amendment to the constitution, yet the 13th amendment's article (this one) and Senator James Nesmith's article claim that only 2 Democratic Senators, James Nesmith and Reverdy Johnson, voted in favor of the 13th amendment's passage.

The missing Senator in question is Benjamin F Harding. His page, alongside Reverdy Johnson's, has no mention of their votes in favor of the amendment.

I was planning on correcting both claims in the two articles alongside adding the claim to the pages of the 2 other Senators. The claim on this page is not sourced, but the page is semi-protected and I didn't want to step on any toes editing something there. So I figured I'd change it on the 3 men's pages, and whenever I became more comfortable with wikipedia, I'd try adding it to the protected article.

However, on James Nesmith's article the claim is sourced twice in two different books. I have been able to read the first source online, and the claim is dubious at best. The page they cite has no mention of either James Nesmith's vote or Reverdy Johnson's vote. It mentions Reverdy Johnson's support of an amendment like the 13th and the previous pages spoke of other prominent Democrats that supported such an amendment, yet no mention of the actual voting. Reading past the page they cite will require I get access to the book. I plan on doing so if I can find it at my local library.

I have not been able to view the page of the second source, if my local library has it I'll try and read it. Though if it's as dubious as the first citation I doubt it has the facts to back up the article's claim.

I was planning on adding my note to Reverdy Johnson's and Benjamin F. Harding's pages and leaving this page and the 13th amendment alone, but thought it'd be strange to have these claims hyperlinked to James Nesmith's and the 13th Amendment's pages with contradictory statements. After seeking help, I was recommended to start a talk discussion on the pages I'm trying to contradict to try and reach a consensus before adding information on 2 articles that would contradict 2 other articles. This is one of the pages, the other being James Nesmith's talk discussion. Jinandwin (talk) 13:32, 25 November 2022 (UTC)


 * If it is incorrect, this article should be updated with correction (it is certainly possible that whoever wrote what is there now misconstrued or mistook something). The website you link to suggests its source is this website: https://voteview.com/  Probably best if you find it on that source website, and if you can confirm with books or published encyclopedia, even better. In short, if you could do a bit more research to pin it down, I think everyone will want to go along with your edits. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:40, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your response, somehow I completely missed that govtrack had a source. I found the vote voteview here: https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS0380134 and frustratingly, it is sourced from "Congresional (sic) Globe vol. 65, p. 1490; Senate Journal vol. 56, p. 313".
 * What's even more confounding is that Reverdy Johnson is listed as a Unionist on voteview. More Senators are counted as Unionists or Unconditional unionists on voteview's vote count. Based on what I've read, Reverdy Johnson probably was a Unionist at the time of the vote.
 * Would it be wrong of me to use the Congressional Globe and Senate Journal as my sources without reading it myself to make the claim that Harding and Nesmith were the only Democratic Senators to vote for the 13th? Jinandwin (talk) 20:05, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You can use the website, imo, it is published by a department of UCLA, edited and maintained by academics. Also, its taking and presentation of the data from the congressional record, likely makes it a WP:Secondary source, which are preferred. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:24, 26 November 2022 (UTC)