Talk:United States v. Ballin

Upon graduation...
Once this article graduates from the Article Incubator, the article currently sitting at U.S. v. Ballin should cleared and turned into a redirect that points to this article. —ShinyGee (talk • contribs) 02:31, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:45, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Comments by Cryptic C62

 * "United States v. Ballin, 144 U.S. 1 (1892) is a landmark decision issued on February 29, 1892 by the United States Supreme Court." What exactly does "landmark decision" mean? (not a rhetorical question, I'd just like some clarification)
 * Landmark decisions significantly change the law (or its interpretation) on a particular topic. Things like Miranda warnings, the fundamental right to abortion, or separate being inherently unequal all emanate from landmark cases.  Calling Ballin landmark is decided hyperbole, and the qualifier has been removed. —ShinyG 21:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "along with how the presence of a majority is to be verified" It isn't clear that this is referring to a majority within the Senate/House. I think this may be a problem with the layout of the sentence, not just this phrase in particular. You could try something like "Justice David Josiah Brewer delivered the opinion of the unanimous Court discussing various limitations on the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives, such as..."
 * The lead section has been reworded and shuffled somewhat. Please take a look again. —ShinyG 21:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The original case in question was a seemingly trivial matter about classifying cloths, but the supreme court case dealt with the Senate and the House. The connection between the two is not clear. Even if the connection is made apparent later on in the article, I really think it should be explained here to avoid confusion.
 * Added sentence "The importers challenged the validity of the law authorizing the duty increase, alleging an absence of a legislative quorum when the law was passed." That should clear it up from the get-go.  —ShinyG 21:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "the constitutional definition of a quorum to do business" The phrase "quorum to do business" seems a bit archaic. I suggest simply dropping "to do business" unless there's something I'm missing.
 * "Quorum to do Business" is the actual wording in the Constitution, which is why it seems archaic. I think the wording should stay.  I have for now placed it within quotation marks, but I am not even certain that those are needed.  Please discuss.  —ShinyG 21:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the quotation marks make sense if it's an excerpt from the constitution. Also, should it read a "quorum to do business" instead of just "quorum to do business" since "quorum" is a noun? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ —ShinyG 18:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "In particular, the Court noted that it is well within the powers of the House and Senate to establish rules that detail a method for verifying the presence of a majority of their members." I think this can be simplified to "In particular, the Court noted that it is well within the powers of the House and Senate to establish rules for verifying the presence of a majority of their members."
 * ✅ —ShinyG 18:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Here are some comments on the article's prose:


 * "Those present, but not voting, could block votes and prevent a quorum" I understand how not voting can prevent a quorum, but I don't understand what it means to "block votes".
 * "In July 21, 1890, Ballin, Joseph & Co imported into New York certain manufactures of worsted." Very archaic language. "Manufactures" is no longer used as a noun and "certain" is meaningless here. Is there any information in the sources about how much worsted they imported? That could be helpful for rewriting the sentence: "In July 21, 1890, Ballin, Joseph & Co imported 2 elephants of worsted into New York." Also, does this refer to New York City or to some other town?
 * Took me a while to figure out the answer to this one. It is all in the transcript of record and I just need to figure out how to best cite to it. The short summary is that throughout July 1890, BJ&Co imported 30 cases of worsted cloth into the Port of New York (11 cases on July 3, 1890 by the steamer Majestic, 16 cases on July 10, 1890 by the steamer City of New York, 3 cases on July 21, 1890 by the steamer City of Richmond; all three arriving from Liverpool). I'll figure out how to best incorporate this into the article. Probably the parenthetical info in the footnote, the summarized 30 in the main text, and appropriate citations to the info within the footnote. —ShinyG 18:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * In order to make the timeline complete, either the end of Background section or the beginning of the Opinion of the Court should have some information about how the case got from the Circuit Court to the SCOTUS.
 * "The judgment of the Circuit Court was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings." One-sentence paragraphs are generally frowned upon, and this is no exception. Also, what does "remanded for further proceedings" mean? I suspect many users will be equally unfamiliar with the term.

I'll be adding more comments as we go. Please make indented responses to individual concerns so it is clear which are addressed and which need further discussion. Thanks! --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)


 * It appears that ShinyG has been eaten by a bear. If anyone would like to continue with this review, please leave a note on my talk page. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:29, 25 May 2010 (UTC)