Wikipedia:Peer review/Ostend Manifesto/archive1

Ostend Manifesto

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for May 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
First, forgive the state of the references section. Most of it was there when I got to the article, and I plan to go through at a later date and remove the ones that haven't been used.

The main thing I'm looking for is cohesiveness. I reorganized the article completely when I started working on it, and the "Pierce's dilemma" section is a creation of my own after I'd sorted out and expanded upon the previous content. I felt this separated Pierce's immediate situation from e.g. Jefferson and allowed me to elaborate a bit more on why his administration acted the way it did. There was formerly a section called "Soule's role" but it felt better this way. I want to make sure the sections mesh well with each other and progress logically. Then, of course, the usual prose suggestions and such.

Thanks, Recognizance (talk) 00:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: An interesting account of a corner of history probably completely unknown to the vast majority of Brits. My chief thought, after a first read-through, was that the article is light on detail, and might be hard to defend on the comprehensiveness criterion. For example, in the Creation section you don't give the date on which these envoys met, you don't say they met in Ostend, and you don't mention that they had a follow-up meeting in Aix-la-Chapelle. We are pretty much in the dark as to what the Manifesto they drew up actually contained, apart from the proposed purchase price for Cuba and the back-up option of using force. Likewise, we are told that the details of the document were leaked, but not told how this occurred or, more importantly, to whom the leak was made. Presumably to a newspaper, and if so, what paper?

I have not commented on the list of "references" which you evidently have in hand. Apart from a general need to flesh out the article I have numerous further points:-

• Lead: it is questionable whether, as it stands, the lead fulfils its required function of summarising the whole article. When you have expanded the general text it will be necessary to revise/extend the lead. Incidentally, the last sentence of the lead is not followed up in the body of the article.
• Historical context
  • 90 miles: metrical equivalent required - suggest use convert template
  • "...Adams observing during his time as Secretary of State..." Give the year when these observations were made, and also of his "later" description of Cuba and Puerto Rico as "appendages"
  • "March of 1854": the "of" in date formats is generally redundant
  • "...the steamer Black Warrior was stopping at the Cuban port of Havana during a regular trading route from New York City to Mobile, Alabama." Clumsy phrasing: "was stopping" should be "had stopped", "during a regular trading route" should be "on a regular trading route", and Mobile, Alabama should be linked. Thus: "...the steamer Black Warrior had stopped at the Cuban port of Havana on a regular trading route from New York City to Mobile, Alabama
  • "After failing to provide a cargo manifest Cuban officials at the dock seized the ship..." This reads as though the Cuban officials had failed to provide the cargo manifest. Suggest rephrase: "After the steamer had failed to provide a cargo manifest, Cuban officials at the dock seized the ship..."
  • You need to say who William L Marcy was.
• Pierce's dilemma
  • Section heading: I gather from the text that the "dilemma" was the division in the Southern Democratic party, though this is not obvious from the reading. I wonder if the heading should be changed to something more explicit?
  • First sentence needs a citation
  • So does the Calhoun quotation later in the paragraph
  • "President Polk had agreed to an offer of $100 million..." - presumably for the purchase of Cuba, but say so. Also, say to whom the payment would be made.
  • "...the interim Whig administrations...": Wrong use of "interim", which implies provisional or temporary. Why not be more informative and say "...the subsequent Taylor and Fillmore administrations..." (and link the presidents)
  • "...in light of the new controversy ignited by the Kansas-Nebraska Act..." This needs a few words of explanation, rather than presumption of knowledge of this controversy. And "Kansas-Nebraska Act" needs linking
  • "...so a purchase or intervention on the basis of national security..." - needs commas after "purchase" and "national security", then "were" deemed
• Creation
  • "budding member"? Not sure what this means; does it mean "increasingly influential" or some such?
  • "outside of..." - "of" is redundant
  • "he held ... a foretold 'absorption of the entire continent and its island appendages'". Sorry, this wording makes no sense. Needs rephrasing.
  • Final sentence needs a citation
• Fallout
  • "stirred with..."? Surely, "stirred by", if stirred is indeed the right word.
  • Try to avoid the close repetition of the word "significantly"
  • More citation needed in the second paragraph, in which most of the statements are presently uncited.

With appropriate additional work this could easily become a Good Article, perhaps even featured in due course. As I can't watch all my peer reviews, please ping my talk page if you have questions arising from this review. Otherwise, good luck wth the article. Brianboulton (talk) 11:04, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Comments on review

I agree with Brian's comments. And yes, this is an interesting account of the Ostend Manifesto, which is often overlooked in high school, and indeed college level instruction. Not one of the US glorious moments in foreign policy.

In terms of my own comments, I have several writing/style comments that will also strengthen the content by making stronger statements. I suggest stronger verbs: viewed, considered, stopped, instead of had considered, had stopped etc. for example, Congress considered the "Black Warrior" affair as ....... If you need this many "helping" verbs, you probably have your subjects switched with your objects.

The overview can be much stronger: for example, this is the text you have in the introduction:

The Ostend Manifesto was a secret document written in 1854 by U.S. diplomats at Ostend, Belgium, describing a plan to acquire Cuba from Spain. A product of the debate over slavery in the United States, Manifest Destiny, and the Monroe Doctrine, the document was not intended to be made public; when news of its existence was leaked, it resulted in public outcry both domestically and abroad. The fallout over the Ostend Manifesto dealt a significant blow to the administration of U.S. President Franklin Pierce, and effectively ruled out any discussions of Cuba's annexation during the prelude to the American Civil War. While the document was never acted upon, American intervention in Cuba would next surface near the end of the nineteenth century in the Spanish-American War, renewing interest in the island among expansionists.

I suggest the following:

The Ostend Manifesto, a secret document written in 1854 by U.S. diplomats at Ostend, Belgium, described a plan to acquire Cuba from Spain. A product of the debates in the United States over slavery, Manifest Destiny, and the Monroe Doctrine, the document was not intended to be made public. News of its existence resulted in public outcry, both in the United States and in Europe. The fallout over the Ostend Manifesto dealt a significant blow to the administration of U.S. President Franklin Pierce, and in particular to Pierce's foreign policy, and effectively ruled out any discussion of Cuba's annexation as a "slave state" during the years prior to the American Civil War. While the document was never acted upon, American intervention in Cuba would next surface near the end of the nineteenth century in the Spanish-American War, reflecting a renewed interest in the island among expansionists.

The suggested rewrite accomplishes the following:

• first, it links the name, Ostend Manifesto, with the specific details of what it was, and relegates the date and who/where to "clause" status;
• second, the manifesto was a product of three debates in the US, not debate in the US over slavery, and by implication, Manifest Destiny and Monroe Doctrine elsewhere;
• third, Cuba's possible annexation as a slave state is what made the OM such a volatile issue;
• fourth the intervention in Cuba at the end of the century did not result in the interest in expansion, but was a result of the renewed interest in expansion. Causes and Consequences are reversed.
• fifth, "domestic and abroad" reflect the US centric pov of many of Wikipedia's articles; I suggest rewording to in the US and in Europe. I'm not sure the Chinese and Japanese were overly concerned about this.

*sixth, while your sources are more than adequate for this article, do you have some perspective to add from the Carib. angle? You've told us what the US perspective was, the European reaction, but what about the rest of the "American" perspective?

• And yes, there needs to be something in the text about the last sentence of your overview. A short section, with reference to Roosevelt, Rough Riders, Spanish American War, or Remember the Maine or SOMETHIng.

I would say to move up a classification, you need the latter in particular.--Auntieruth55 (talk) 16:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Carib. Point of View

I did a quick search to see what is available, using JSTOR as a barometer, and I'm surprised more hasn't been written on the Ostend Manifesto from the Central American and South American perspective! Soooo, I've crossed out the bit above. --Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:43, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I had left Auntieruth a message on her talk page to that effect, for anyone else reading this. I'll do my best to incorporate at least the Cuban POV. The article is currently undergoing surgery at User:Recognizance/Sandbox to make the Pierce section about events (including the Black Warrior) during his administration and the historical context into "everything prior to Pierce's presidency" in effect. I've also begun expanding the creation section there and will incorporate the above and any other comments it received. Thank you both for the feedback. Recognizance (talk) 23:05, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you think I should mention the Filibuster (military) in the historical context section? I intend to work in a mention in the Pierce administration, particularly since that's part of what it's referring to with the "pro-slavery invasion" they had ruled out. But I want to make sure this is focusing on the manifesto rather than a history lesson. (Also, I've reworked the organisation in my sandbox if you have any thoughts on that.) Recognizance (talk) 19:50, 27 May 2009 (UTC)