Talk:Benjamin Robbins Curtis

A fact from Benjamin Robbins Curtis appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 16 April 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Benjamin Robbins Curtis was the first U.S. Supreme Court Justice to have a law degree?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/April.

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Confusion

I was working on improving the writing, but I could not decide whether you meant "legally trained" or "legally degreed" in the introduction. They mean different things, right? Awadewit (talk) 14:29, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually both. Went to law school (Harvard Law School was brand new, and he got a law degree. If you google Joseph Story and Rufus Hooker Ashmun you'll find Story's eulogy of the latter, and it will give you a concept of how new this all was. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 14:44, 2 April 2010 (UTC) Stan[reply]

See if the change I made is correct. Awadewit (talk) 14:57, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Removed sentence

As I was copyediting, I was unsure of the need for the following sentence: The same year he briefly returned to Cambridge where he took another course on law. - Could you provide more information that would give context for this? Awadewit (talk) 14:40, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Post graduate work, I think. Take a look at the NY Times piece. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 14:44, 2 April 2010 (UTC) Stan[reply]

A 19th-century book review does not seem like the most reliable source to me - it's tone is not particularly objective and it is not the best place to glean information about Curtis. Awadewit (talk) 00:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps source too close?

This source looks very similar to sections of the article. We need to make sure that the article uses original wording. Awadewit (talk) 14:46, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We quote "he was elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature. He was appointed chairman of a committee charged with the reform of state judicial procedures, and within two years presented the Massachusetts Practice Act of 1851. It was considered a model of judicial reform and was approved by the legislature without amendment." and give that section as a source. So yes, they are not merely similar, they are identical. If you want to mix it up and alter it so it is no longer a quotation, feel free. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 20:07, 2 April 2010 (UTC) Stan[reply]

Yes, as you can see here, I extended those very quotation marks so that the article would not copy directly from the source. However, now almost the entire paragraph is a quote - it is not a good idea to quote so much, so I would suggest you paraphrase a bit more, particularly since you have copied such a large portion of the source - you are probably no longer at fair use percentages. Also, I'm concerned that other parts of the article might have been copied like this one was. Awadewit (talk) 02:22, 3 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Thank you. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 02:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC) Stan[reply]

Reason for resignation

According to what I've read, the immediate cause for his resignation was that after he had submitted his written dissent in Dred Scott, Chief Justice Taney started surreptitiously rewriting his own written opinion (at a time when it was supposed to be final), which in addition to being rather skulkingly underhanded, also was the reason for significant delays in the appearance of the printed court decision. After Taney pretty much lied about this, Taney and Curtis had a somewhat snippy exchange of notes, and Curtis resigned. Curtis's dissent was the most influential of the two Dred Scott dissents at the time, partly because McLean was widely suspected of having personal political ambitions... AnonMoos (talk) 08:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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