Talk:James Madison

Re dangling '' tag in text

Mary, in dealing with the dangling ‘’ you spotted under the ‘Retirement’ heading, it appears you assumed the sentence preceding it was a quote from the book by McCoy referenced for that sentence. I believe that assumption not correct.

The original blockquote resides at Revision as of 17:23, 13 April 2007 by Richard Jensen, and reads (in the editor window):

<blockquote> During the final six years of his life, amid a sea of personal [financial] troubles that were threatening to engulf him...At times mental agitation issued in physical collapse. For the better part of a year in 1831 and 1832 he was bedridden, if not silenced...Literally sick with anxiety, he began to despair of his ability of make himself understood by his fellow citizens.<ref>Drew R. McCoy, ''The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy'' (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989), p.151.</ref> </blockquote>

Richard appears to have removed the quote and substituted a truncated partial paraphrase, viz., the sentence you appear to have assumed constituted the quote: “Madison's financial troubles and deteriorating mental and physical health would continue to consume him. By the 1830s, troubled by debts that were threatening to bankrupt him, Madison's mental agitation led to physical collapse. [22]”

You can see the first transition to paraphrase in Revision as of 17:29, 13 April 2007 by Richard Jensen. If, in the editor window, you compare the two revisions, you can see that Richard removed the ‘<blockquote>’ but left the closing ‘</blockquote>', the latter then appearing as the dangling ‘</blockquote>’ as text after the page was saved. Even Homer (aka, RJ) nods.

Accordingly, I simply restored to prior your well-intentioned edit and removed the dangling ‘ tag.

If you have concerns, check the McCoy book at the page cited in the reference. —Anthony.Sebastian 20:08, 28 June 2012 (UTC)