Talk:William C. C. Claiborne

Age
I'm uncomfortable with the article's assertion that his birthdate has been "quoted as being before 23 November 1772" and the citation being simply "Self-identified as being at least 25 by taking oath of office on November 23, 1797." First, even if we accept that he was "self-identifying" his age by taking the oath of office (I'm about to contest that), that's at best an implicit assertion on his part, and in order to "quoted", it would have to have been explicit. But even leaving that distinction aside, the statement that he was actively asserting his birthdate to be before 23 November 1772 (which should be "before 24 November 1772" anyway) by taking the oath of office violates WP:SYNTH, because it ignores the possibility that he might simply not have bothered about whether or not he was old enough for the office. No one has ever said, for instance, that Charles James Fox "self-identified as being born before 1748" by entering Parliament in 1768, yet no one contested Fox's entry because he was two years too young&mdash;despite the fact that Fox's date of birth would have been much more public knowledge in the House of Commons than Claiborne's would have in the House of Representatives, and despite the fact that there would have been much more incentive to challenge Fox's eligibility to hold office (because of his father's many political enemies) than there would have been to challenge Claiborne's. People simply weren't at all bothered about the matter of a year or two of age&mdash;which to me is a very different thing than saying that Claiborne's oath of office constitutes an assertion by him that he was twenty-five years old. There's no problem with the article stating that the Constitution requires federal representatives to be twenty-five, and there's no problem with pointing out that his alleged birthdates put him between twenty-two and twenty-four when he took office. But taking it a step further and saying that he claimed to have been twenty-five on 23 November 1797 is original research by way of synthesis and requires a (real) citation in order to stay in the article. Binabik80 (talk) 04:59, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with you. Most sources give Claiborne's birth date as August of 1775, and a few narrow that down to August 13, 1775.  His gravestone indicates that he was 42 when he died on November 23, 1817.  That inscription lines up with a birth taking place between January 1 and November 22, 1775.  At a minimum, I think the birth year of 1775 is verified by the grave marker, unless someone can explain how the grave marker is wrong.  I don't see how he "self-identified" by taking the Congressional oath.  Other Congressmen and Senators in the country's early years are known to have been younger than the required age -- Senators Henry Clay of Kentucky and John Eaton of Tennessee come to mind -- but no one challenged them, they were seated, and they were able to serve.  But the fact that no one challenged Clay or Eaton doesn't mean that they didn't know that they were under the age of 30.Billmckern (talk) 14:53, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Awesome. I'm removing that one from the list of possible birthdates.  I agree on 1775 being the most likely.  Binabik80 (talk) 19:54, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Governor end date
After reading various related articles I'm fairly certain (but not 100% sure) that the end year of his governorship of Mississippi Territory was 1803, and not 1805 as it says in the 'Political offices' box and in the 'Infobox Governor'. Yes, this would mean that from 1803 until 1805 nobody was governor. I'm guessing that's because George Mathews was appointed the governorship in that period but that appointment was revoked before Mathews took office. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 15:01, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The Mississippi Territorial Archives, 1798-1803, Volume 1. Page 341 of this work indicates that Claiborne was Governor of Mississippi Territory until October, 1804.


 * The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi. According to page 22 of this work, Robert Williams became Governor in March, 1805.  According to page 21, Secretary of the Territory Cato West served as acting Governor between Claiborne's departure and Williams's arrival.


 * I hope this helps.


 * Billmckern (talk) 15:29, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

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