Talk:James Watson Webb

Complaint

IP editor 189.123.13.46 posted this on Webb's article:

The author of James Watson Webb's biography left out the information that Webb proposed to Secretary of State Sumner to take all free slaves to Brazil, for $50 per head, plus the cost of transportation. He also went to Brazil, and proposed to the Brazilian government to bring all liberated slaves in the USA for $50 a head, to settle in the Amazon. Had both nations agreed to it, he would have earned $100 per former slave brought to the Amazon. Brazil at the moment was engaged in a campaign to bring educated European immigrants, with knowledge of industry, and also to raise the level of educated persons in the country (at the time only 25% Brazilians knew how to read and write). They also were to "whiten up" the Brazilian population, which at the time was less than 30% white. Mr. Webb was also involved in the question of French Guyana, which on his own he had negotiated with Napoleon for the USA to buy, for $8 million, but Sumner would not hear of it as the USA was in the middle of the Civil War. In Brazilian history, Mr. Webb is seen as a money grabber, which indeed he seemed to have been. He was more of a businessman than a diplomat.

It may be valid, but needs RSs.--ɱ (talk · vbm) 13:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

third paragraph under CAREER

In third paragraph under CAREER is a statement purportedly by "Historian" Don C. Seitz - but the claim is rife with errors.

(1) Henry Clay never fought "Tom Marshall". He fought 2 duels, the first in 1809 with Humphrey Marshall; the 2nd in 1826 with John Randolph.

(2) Thomas Francis Marshall (1801-1864) of Frankfort KY, nephew of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall, fought 3 duels, but none with Clay. His second duel, in Delaware on June 25,1842, was with the subject, James Watson Webb, editor of the NY Courier and Enquirer. On the 2nd fire, Webb was struck in the knee and crippled for life; Marshall was unhurt. Marshall's other duels were with John Rowan Jr (1835) & LT. James S. Jackson (1846), for the latter Marshall served as his second in a duel 5 months earlier. (Source: 'Famous Kentucky Duels" by J. Winston Coleman Jr. (1969).)

(3) James Seward was governor of NY from 1839 to 1842. According to news articles dated 9 Dec 1842, his pardon was for Webb's role in his duel with Thomas F. Marshall. His earlier involvement with Jonathan Cilley went unindicted.

The tone of much of this biography is clearly negative, reflective of the pro-Jackson bias promoted by editors such as Deitz. Webb had many supporters, including Capt. Samuel Worthington Dewey (1807-1899), famous for his "USS Constitution Bowsprit Beheading" of the 1834, who according to a 3 March 1838 article in the New York Daily Herald, vociferously defended Col. Webb. Similarly, a column in the 21 Nov 1842 New York Tribune states the case for Col. Webb's pardon.

JMBrouillet (talk) 21:46, 21 March 2021 (UTC)