CONVERSATIONS ON JEFFERSON AND JEFFERSONIAN POLITICS
The Scholars Commission Report
From the H-SHEAR, subject: "Jefferson-Hemings Redux":Robert Burg:
A new scholarly report put out under the auspices of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (link below) argues that the DNA evidence assembled in recent years is not enough to conclude that any of the Hemings children were sired by Jefferson himself.The story is being published across the mainstream press. For those who haven't seen such accounts, below is a link to the story at the National Review, which has the added benefit of listing all the scholars involved in the report.
http://www.nationalreview.com/daily/nr041201.shtml
Has any one seen this 550 pg. report? And what will be the likely rebuttal from proponents of Jefferson's paternity?
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 13, 2001.
Bob Sampson:
Today's Chicago Tribune has a quite lengthy piece on the latest flap. It indicates that there a number of scholars do not agree with the Jefferson Heritage Society's findings. I would encourage anyone interested in the issue to visit the Tribune's website and take a look at the story. The address for the story (for today at least) is:http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/article/0,2669,SAV-0104130166,FF.html
[That link is no longer operational. -Ed.]Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 13, 2001.
Richard B. Bernstein:
In response to the question raised by the Jefferson-Hemings study published under the auspices of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society:The "report" is not a report but rather a collection of essays, on the model of Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, eds., SALLY HEMINGS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON: HISTORY, MEMORY, CIVIC CULTURE (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999).
Furthermore, it is not a 600-page volume but somewhere between 250 and 300 pages, at most. I have held and paged through a bound galley of the book in question. I find the exaggeration of its bulk suspicious, even if the number "600 pages" refers to the size of the unpublished manuscript rather than the finished book. It's the sort of thing that you do to exaggerate the "weight" of your book, in terms of both poundage and credibility.
I raise the following points with respect to this highly publicized effort:
* The authors have assumed their conclusion, despite the sponsoring organization's claims to the contrary. This is not what we should deem historical scholarship (undertaken to investigate the past and assuming the risk that one's presuppositions about the past might be shattered or overthrown) but desperate historical defense-lawyering. Fans of the ABC-TV series THE PRACTICE will recognize that this effort is an example of the famed tactic known as "Plan B." To wit, if your client is on the hook, find someone else and build an argument that someone else is the guilty party. That creates enough reasonable doubt to let your client off the hook.
* The claims as to Randolph Jefferson's paternity are hobbled by some key factors, as shown by the discussion of this matter released last year by the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation and available at http://www.monticello.org
-- First, Randolph Jefferson cannot be sshown to have been present in Sally Hemings's vicinity nine months before each of the six times that she gave birth; Jefferson can. The odds of this pattern supporting Thomas Jefferson's paternity were shown by a formidable article in the January 2000 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY to be over 10,000 to 1.
-- Second, except for one affidavit fromm one elderly white descendant of Thomas Jefferson, secured within the past two years (I believe), there is no body of circumstantial evidence indicating that Randolph Jefferson was the father comparable to the large body of circumstantial evidence indicating that Thomas Jefferson was the father.
-- Third, Randolph Jefferson has never bbeen cited by those seeking to cast doubt on the liaison between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings until November 1998, when the DNA study was published by NATURE magazine. That study showed that a male member of Thomas Jefferson's family was the father of Eston Hemings, and added further that the historical circumstantial evidence weighed greatly in favor of Thomas Jefferson being the father rather than any other male member of Jefferson's family.
* To be sure, the scholars in question have worked extensively on Jefferson as a politician and political thinker, especially Professors Forrest McDonald, David Mayer, Lance Banning, and Jean Yarbrough. And Professor Alf J. Mapp is the author of a two-volume life of Jefferson. However, with deep respect to them all, they have not worked on social history in the Revolutionary period or the era of the early American republic, nor on the history of slavery, nor on gender relations. I know a couple of these scholars, and I esteem them and their work, but I find this current episode dismaying and unnecessary.
I should add that I write as a former doubter who, having read and studied carefully Annette Gordon-Reed's THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS: AN AMERICAN CONTROVERSY (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), was persuaded of the truth of the sexual liaison between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Following that book's publication, the publication of the DNA study in November 1998 provided additional evidence (but not exclusively definitive evidence) for Thomas Jefferson's paternity. Finally, the statistical study I already mentioned provided still more evidence.
If you take the case presented by Prof. Annette Gordon-Reed and add to it the evidence of the 1998 DNA study from NATURE and the statistical analysis from the January 2000 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY, you approach historical certainty.
Finally, I'd like to raise a point about the rhetorical posture of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society's report and its accompanying publicity. They see themselves as "defending" Jefferson, and they assign to those who have argued for the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings liaison a prosecutorial (if not inquisitorial) zeal and motivations having to do with besmirching Jefferson and, through him, America. As Annette Gordon-Reed asked in her essay in the Lewis-Onuf symposium (and, I believe, in her essay in the January 2000 WMQ), what does it say about this controversy that those who seek to refute the TJ-SH liaison use such terms as "defend" and "exonerate"?
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 16, 2001.
Eyler Coates, Sr.:
R. B. Bernstein, a colleague of Annette Gordon-Reed and an enthusiastic promoter of her book, on April 14, 2001, posted a review at Amazon.com for the book which I edited, "The Jefferson-Hemings Myth: An American Travesty," produced by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS), which review included the following statement:"They quote out of context, omit vital factual data, present sources as saying the opposite of what they say, and otherwise muddy the waters to the point of impenetrability."
This was the next day after he had posted to H-SHEAR the following comment in which he confused the TJHS book with the Scholars Commission Report (a mix-up he eventually corrected):
"I have held and paged through a bound galley of the book in question. I find the exaggeration of its bulk suspicious, even if the number "600 pages" refers to the size of the unpublished manuscript rather than the finished book."
The 600 page book [actually 565 pages], was the Scholars Commission Report, not the TJHS book which he paged through. Information on both is available through the TJHS website, www.tjheritage.org. It is amazing that Prof. Bernstein could page through the TJHS book, not be able to distinguish it from an entirely different scholarly report by an entirely different set of authors, and then give such a detailed criticism of the book as he posted at Amazon.com. I would be willing to believe he had stupendous skills at speed reading and could digest a book simply by paging through it, but for the fact that all his statements about the book he paged through are unsupportable. On the other hand, perhaps between the time Prof. Bernstein wrote the H-SHEAR posting and the Amazon.com review, he actually did read the book. If so, it would be interesting to see real examples of the faults he cites.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, May 29, 2001.
Eyler Coates
It was impossible to answer fully all the postings on this subject at H-SHEAR. Besides the difficulty of one or two persons trying to respond to the postings from a half-dozen or more, the H-SHEAR editor cut off the discussion and refused any more. This new format, however, allows for unlimited discussion and a more careful examination of the points raised.
Since Richard Bernstein initially confused the Scholars Commission Report with a book issued by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, it seems likely that his comment on the SC Report was based on a position held in general and the news reports about what the Report contained, not on a careful examination of the Report itself. Nevertheless, we will respond to some of the points he raises.
Bernstein states that the authors of the report have "assumed their conclusion," and that this is "desperate historical defense-lawyering" which attempts to "build an argument that someone else is the guilty party." That may be one way of looking at the historical facts. Another historian may consider that there is evidence of equal or better value that suggests that someone else is more likely to be guilty than Thomas Jefferson. It seems that a historian who was not wedded to a specific candidate would want to consider every possible one, and weigh the evidence carefully for each.
Bernstein then proceeds to examine the evidence against Randolph Jefferson's paternity. First, he notes that Randolph cannot be shown to have been at Monticello every time Sally Hemings conceived, whereas Thomas Jefferson was there. This is true; however, Randolph is not necessarily being considered as father of all of Sally's children, but only of Eston, whose descendant has the same Y chromosome as the descendants of Field Jefferson. Bernstein exaggerates when he suggests that the odds of the pattern supporting Jefferson's paternity was 10,000 to 1, whereas the article he cites says the probability ranges "between 0.8 and 1.5 percent." But the study he cites was shown to be deeply flawed in its assumptions by Dr. David Murray, Director of the Statistical Assessment Service, who treated the topic in the TJHS book, The Jefferson-Hemings Myth. Among other failings, Dr, Murray found that the Neiman study in the William and Mary Quarterly ignores the fact that visitors to Monticello were much more likely to visit when Thomas Jefferson was there than when he was away and the building was kept locked. Mark Twain said there were lies, damn lies, and statistics. With a careful selection of the premises, statistics can be made to prove just about anything one wants to prove. Making a statistical outcome dependent on Jefferson being at Monticello when no other candidate for paternity is likely to be there except when he is there does not make a convincing case.
As for evidence, there exists a letter from Thomas Jefferson to his brother Randolph inviting the latter to Monticello to visit just before the time Eston was conceived. It has frequently been said that no one mentioned Randolph as a possible father of Sally Hemings's children before the DNA test results were made public, but that is simply untrue. That possibility was explored long before November 1998. More than a decade before the 1998 DNA testing, Karyn Traut, after an exhaustive study lasting several years, wrote the play, Saturday's Children, and concluded by identifying Randolph as the father. And even before that, Pearl Graham wrote a letter in 1958 to Dr. Julian Boyd, editor of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, suggesting Randolph as a logical paternity candidate. It is a mistake, therefore, for Jefferson's accusers to assume no one suggested Randolph as a possible father for Sally's children before the DNA tests, and to base that assumption on their failure to uncover such evidence.
When dealing with a situation where there is no direct and conclusive evidence, the fact that a perpetrator has not been previously identified cannot be taken as itself evidence of innocence. The purpose of any investigation into the truth of allegations is to discover what the facts are, whether they point to persons who were previously considered guilty or not. A failure of previous investigators to identify the persons who have committed the act under investigation cannot be permitted to prevent later investigators from suggesting new theories or new perpetrators. Such an arbitrary limitation makes no sense whatsoever.
Both Annette Gordon-Reed and Richard Bernstein question the use of such terms as "defend" and "exonerate" and wonder what it says about this controversy. What it says is, when a great man is attacked unjustly and in an effort to tear down his character, it is natural that those committed to justice will come to his defense and seek to exonerate him of the false charges lodged against him. Why is that so difficult?
July 25, 2001
Patriot
I believe a number of "scholars" have made the statement about Randolph never having been a suspect prior to the DNA tests. Annette Gordon-Reed has repeated this many times. I believe Jan Lewis alluded to this in an H-NET piece describing the 1999 UVA conference, and I vaguely remember her stating that to the media elsewhere. I'm not sure, but some other big names may have said this too.
The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation made the statement in their Jefferson-Hemings Committee Report which Dan Jordan says was supported by 16 scholars: "Furthermore, there are no known references (prior to the 1998 DNA results) to Randolph Jefferson as a possible father of Sally Hemings's children." Their statement is the most shocking since the Pearl Graham letter to Julian Boyd is in a collection at UVA titled "Genealogical data pertaining to the Hemings family of Monticello," which was compiled from 1961-66 by John Cook Wyllie and contains letters to Monticello from one of Madison Hemings's descendants. The citation for this collection is: Hemings family genealogy, 1961-1966, Accession #6636, 6636-a, 6636-b, 6636-c, Special Collections Dept., UVA, Charlottesville, VA. I am certain the Thomas Jefferson Foundation is well-acquainted with this 14 item collection.
I think the above information is helpful in pointing out shoddy scholarship by Jefferson's accusers, but the point Eyler Coates makes about the relevance of whether Randolph was introduced as a suspect earlier or not is most important. All evidence should be considered in evaluating historical data regardless of when it is suggested. I cannot believe anyone would make such a statement as part of a scholarly argument.
If Joseph Ellis did not even realize Randolph Jefferson had existed, an appropriate response would have been that this was new evidence that should be taken under consideration.
August 6, 2001
Publius
In general, historians didn't care who fathered Sally Hemings' children. From their perception, the only interesting question was whether Thomas Jefferson was the father. Beyond that -- while the issue is obviously of interest to the Woodson/Hemings descendants -- to "history," Sally Hemings' sexual behavior was of no more importance than that of scores of other slave women who had children while owned by Thomas Jefferson.
The key point is that no serious/recognized Jefferson scholar accepted the allegation until our lifetimes, and as recently as 1997 Joseph Ellis and Daniel Jordan both agreed the case was weak. Since there were two generally credible accounts from separate sources alleging that Thomas Jefferson Randolph had claimed to have overheard confessions from the Carrs -- both accounts passed through generally credible sources (Ellen and Henry Randall), who in turn passed the info along under injunctions of secrecy (making it all the more credible -- they were apparently not trying to make it public knowledge)--it was logical for historians to dismiss the paternity issue by mentioning the Carr brothers.
The DNA says nothing about the paternity of Sally's older children, and thus the Carr thesis remains viable. Modern Jefferson historians who bothered to address the issue have tended not to do original research but to cite the earlier Carr stories. Even some respected Jefferson scholars did not speculate about Randolph because he (like Sally) was generally so unimportant in the "big picture" that they didn't even know he existed (e.g., Ellis didn't know until Herb Barger told him).
Interestingly, two people in our lifetimes have focused seriously on this issue. Pearl Graham was obviously very pro-Hemings and based her conclusions in large part upon oral histories obtained from the Hemings descendants. In discussing the possible fathers, her FIRST candidate was Randolph --presumably because she saw him as the most likely alternative if Tomas Jefferson was not the father. And we must add to this the inquiry of Ms. Traut, who started out believing the "Tom" story and after years of research concluded that Randolph was the most likely father.
When modern "scholars" assert that no one ever made the claim that Randolph was a suspect, presumably that can be explained either because (1) they were lying and assumed most people would not know of the Graham letter, or (2) they didn't do the basic research any serious historian would do and learn the truth. We offer no interpretation as to whether the false statement(s) in their scholarship reflect shortcomings in their competence or their integrity -- although there is enough evidence in both the Ellis and Gordon-Reed cases to warrant conclusions that they suffer from character problems. What is important is that their statements suggesting no one offered Randolph as a possible father until the DNA test results were released are factually false.
The reason Randolph did not get more attention is that most scholars found the issue uninteresting once they concluded that Thomas Jefferson was not the father, and the two contemporary accounts attributed to Thomas Jefferson Randolph made it easy to speculate that the Carr boys were the culprits.
August 16, 2001
J. L. Bell:
I've read as much of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation's 12 April report as it's made available on the Internet. So far I'm disappointed by its contribution to this historical debate. Given that this picked group of scholars are almost unanimously agreed that Thomas Jefferson's brother Randolph was the most likely father of Sally Hemings's son Eston, I expected them to present more evidence than what we already have (which has led most historians to a different conclusion).Instead, we see the same facts that put Randolph in Sally's vicinity--possibly:
1) A former captive at Monticello recalled that at an unspecified time Randolph played his violin at dances in the slaves' quarters. (And we all know what dancing leads to!)
2) A letter from Thomas to Randolph hints that he's invited to Monticello at about the same time Sally Hemings conceived her son Eston. That Thomas was living in the same house with Sally then and every other time she conceived is, in this report, merely a "long-known coincidence," not a sign that he should stand above Randolph on the list of likely fathers.
At times, the report seems to erect unreasonable hurdles for the Thomas theory. For instance, it discounts the statement of Madison Hemings because "he alleges recalling events that occurred before he was born." The scholars repeatedly note that Madison "did not provide a source for his claim" about his conception (which indeed must have occurred before he was born). Yet I can't help but think that these scholars believe what their own mothers told them about their family histories and their arrivals into the world. Why do they appear so flummoxed about the identity of Madison's source?
It's also difficult to identify the level of scrutiny that this report relies on. At one point it says, "There is reasonably credible evidence based upon eyewitness testimony that Jefferson's nephews Samuel and Peter Carr admitted paternity of at least some of Sally Hemings' children." I find the phrase "reasonably credible" hard to reconcile with how the two eyewitness testimonies about the Carrs are contradictory, have no contemporaneous evidence in their favor, and haven't been supported by any subsequent evidence. By this standard, why aren't Madison Hemings's recollections more than reasonably credible?
The report emphasizes how no one at Monticello wrote about a relationship between Thomas and Sally: "throughout all the years with hundreds and hundreds of visitors, there is not a single record of anyone ever observing the slightest hint of behavior linking Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings romantically." Instead, the report argues: "We believe that the simplest explanation for the long-known coincidence of Thomas Jefferson's return to Monticello and Sally Hemings' pregnancies is that the house at Monticello was normally kept locked during Jefferson's absence, and thus his return would prompt visits to the mountain by numerous friends and relatives--including other candidates for the paternity of Sally Hemings' children such as the President's brother, nephews and cousins." Yet there's no citation from any of those "hundreds of visitors" for such gatherings being standard at Monticello. Indeed, there are no citations at all, at least in this portion of the report--the only portion widely available.
That omission of citations is particularly frustrating when it comes to the one item these authors claim as a discovery: "We discovered that a key sentence in one of [Ellen Randolph Coolidge's] most important letters about this issue had been mistranscribed so as to reverse her clear meaning in the appendix to one scholar's book on this controversy, and the transcription error has unfortunately clearly influenced the scholarship of others." Neither the book, nor the mistranscription, nor the correct transcription is identified in this part of the report. That makes it awfully difficult to judge its importance, I find.
Folks who've read up on this issue know that Annette Gordon-Reed's book THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS presents Coolidge's letter transcribed in an appendix. It thus seems pertinent to consider the report authors' relationship to Gordon-Reed. According to the CHICAGO TRIBUNE article kindly shared by Bob Sampson, the chairman of the group "had thought of asking Gordon-Reed to address the commission but was voted down." Why? "She's an advocate with a point of view," another member told the paper--which, if the scholars hadn't already made up their minds, actually seems like a reason to have heard her out. Gordon-Reed is also, the TRIBUNE notes, a critic of books by a third committee member which strongly advocate the opposite point of view. I can't help but think that the committee heard from him.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 16, 2001.
Eyler Coates
First, it should be made absolutely clear that the Scholars Commission Report issued April 12, 2001, was NOT from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation (TJMF). The TJMF owns Monticello, and issued a report in January, 2000, stating they thought it likely Thomas Jefferson was the father of all of Sally's children. The Scholars Commission was initiated by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, but it functioned completely independently of the TJHS, and it certainly had no connection with the TJMF.
Mr. Bell seems to ridicule the idea that Randolph playing the violin and dancing in the slaves' quarters might lead to a sexual relationship with one of the slaves. But we all know that persons associated with one another in social situations are more likely to have a sexual relationship than persons unacquainted with one another. So the fact that Randolph associated socially with the slaves could be taken as one piece of evidence, along with others, that would support such a possibility. We should also note that this was not a single instance of Randolph socializing with the slaves. As quoted in James a Bear, Jr., Jefferson at Monticello (pg. 22), Issac said Randolph "used to come out," which indicated he did it frequently:
"Old Master's brother, Mass Randall, was a mighty simple man: used to come out among black people, play the fiddle and dance half the night; hadn't much more sense than Issac."
The fact that Thomas Jefferson was resident at Monticello every time Sally Hemings conceived might be significant if all the other possible fathers were there when the President was not there, or were not there when the President was there. But the fact is, the Monticello house was shut down and locked up when the President wasn't there, so the fact that he was there only meant everyone else would only be there at the same time, and his presence had no particular significance other than as an indicator that masses of friends and relatives descended on Monticello at the same time. We might as well remark on the difference in the death rate in a hospital when it is full of patients as compared to when it is empty. It also might be noted that Thomas was at Monticello a few months before Randolph was invited, but Sally did not get pregnant at that time.
Like many other scholars, Mr. Bell assumes that Sally Hemings told Madison who his father was, but Madison in no way indicates that she did. Moreover, there is reasonable evidence to indicate that she did NOT tell him. See The Children of Sally Hemings. For ordinary families, with the father living and acting as father, most children don't need to be told. But Sally and her children were no ordinary family.
Mr. Bell states that the two eyewitness testimonies about the Carrs are contradictory, but he does not explain the contradiction. The fact that they cried under one set of circumstances and laughed under another is not necessarily contradictory. The circumstances were entirely different.
It was the rush to publication that caused the unfortunate absence of the information and citations related to the mistranscription of the Coolidge letter, but it is now available on a webpage of its own at www.oocities.org/tjshcommission/coolidge.htm.
July 26, 2001
Richard B. Bernstein:
I must offer a correction to part of my recent post concerning "Jefferson-Hemings Redux."The book that I have seen is not the Scholars Commission Report but rather another publication by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, Inc., THE JEFFERSON-HEMINGS MYTH (Charlottesville, Va.: Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, Inc.). A full description of this book can be seen at the Society's website:
My other comments, which focus on that book, remain unchanged, save to add that none of the contributors to that book has previously done significant scholarship on Jefferson's life, thought, career, or social context.
I do add one observation, however.
From the early 1800s until 1998, the "Plan B" candidates most often cited -- indeed, consistently cited -- by those seeking to refute the liaison between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings were Peter and Samuel Carr, Jefferson's nephews (the children of Dabney Carr, his best friend, and his sister Martha Jefferson Carr). Indeed, Martha Jefferson Randolph (Jefferson's daughter), Thomas Jefferson Randolph (her son and his grandson), and Edmund Bacon (his overseer), all pointed the finger at the Carrs rather than at Randolph Jefferson (TJ's brother, and the current favored "Plan B" candidate). Not until the DNA test results published in NATURE in November 1998 ruled the Carrs out did anyone, most notably Dr. Herbert Barger, "Jefferson family historian" (so self-designated because he is a physician, and he is married to a descendant of Thomas Jefferson, and he is interested in that family's history), turn to Randolph Jefferson for the purposes of Plan B. Had not the DNA tests ruled the Carrs out, they would still be trumpeting the Carrs as the "real" candidates in their efforts to "exonerate" Jefferson.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 16, 2001.
Eyler Coates
Richard Bernstein's comment that none of the "contributors to that book" -- we assume he refers to the book issued by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society -- has done significant scholarly work on Jefferson, raises the interesting question, Is this an ad hominem attack? As we know, an ad hominem attack is an attack founded on a particular opponent's attributes, rather than an answer to his contentions. This is an important point in the study of history, because the implication is, history is such a matter of judgment, rather than a matter of facts and logic, that only a person steeped in the study of it can say anything worthy of consideration. Is this so? Is the profession of the historian a kind of priesthood in which those who have not been duly initiated are not able to speak about logical inconsistencies and oversights? This is a good question to be explored, but it would seem that in any matter involving the logical relationship of facts, a person's comments should be evaluated, not on the basis of some assumed authority, but on the intelligence of the comments themselves.
Bernstein's discussion of what he calls "Plan B" has several errors which must first be pointed out. Edmund Bacon did not point a finger at the Carr brothers. His identification of the person he saw leaving Sally Hemings's room early in the morning was obliterated in the original manuscript, and no one knows who it was, except that it was not Thomas Jefferson. As explained above, other persons have designated Randolph Jefferson as Sally's partner long before the DNA tests were performed. And it should be noted further that the Carrs have in no way been entirely eliminated. The DNA test was performed on only one descendant of only one of Sally's children (i.e., Eston), and it is not known if Sally, like her mother and at least two of her sisters, had children by multiple fathers. An attempt to run DNA tests on a son of Madison Hemings (who died in 1910) has been prevented by the Hemings descendants, so one or both of the Carrs may still be a "real" candidate, as Bernstein has designated them. (We will not dwell on the other unrelated inaccuracies of Bernstein: Herbert Barker does not have a doctorate, and he is not a physician.)
July 27, 2001
Richard B. Bernstein:
Scholars who have disputed the Scholars Commission report include Jan Lewis of Rutgers University, coeditor of SALLY HEMINGS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON (Univ. Pr. of Va, 1999) and author of PURSUITS OF HAPPINESS (Cambridge U. Press, 1982); Daniel P. Jordan, director of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation; and yours truly.As shown by the posts already offered by J. L. Bell and Austin Meredith (and yours truly), there is more to dispute than resumes -- although, it should be noted, Prof. Annette Gordon-Reed correctly points out that none of the scholars in question has written extensively about Jefferson's life except Alf Mapp, whose biography is an extended apologia admirable only for its consistency of outlook. To go through the list a bit:
* Forrest McDonald has published THE PRESIDENCY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON and some essays, but has focused on Jefferson's thought and political career abstracted from the details of his life and origins.
* Jean Yarbrough has published a formidable study of Jefferson's political thought but, again, has confined herself to Jefferson as a political thinker.
* Lance Banning has published a fine study, THE JEFFERSONIAN PERSUASION, and an excellent set of lectures, JEFFERSON AND MADISON: THREE CONVERSATIONS FROM THE FOUNDING, but he has not written extensively on Jefferson's life and career; indeed, he is primarily a Madison scholar (THE SACRED FIRE OF LIBERTY).
Moreover, none of the members of the Scholars Commission has written or published on such clearly relevant subjects as the social history of slavery, history of the family and sex relations, the laws governing slavery, or miscegenation.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 17, 2001.
Robert Burg:
I must confess, up front, that I've found a number of Richard Bernstein's comments in this thread confounding. Part of that, undoubtedly, was not by design. It appears Bernstein not only confused the upcoming TJHS report with an older publication put out by the same organization--hence his correction and addendum--but he also apparently became confused about an earlier message of mine and then took one of my comments out of context. In his last message to this thread, he wrote:"Scholars who have disputed the Scholars Commission report include Jan Lewis of Rutgers University, coeditor of SALLY HEMINGS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON (Univ. Pr. of Va, 1999) and author of PURSUITS OF HAPPINESS (Cambridge U. Press, 1982); Daniel P. Jordan, director of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation; and yours truly."
This clearly was a reference to a comment I made in an earlier message about the Chicago Tribune article link which Bob Sampson sent in, to wit:
"Thanks to Bob Sampson for the tip on the Tribune article, though the only scholar mentioned in that piece in disagreement with the commission (other than commission member Rahe) is Annette Gordon-Reed; 'number of scholars' is a bit strong."
Bob Sampson's original message, for the record, was:
"Today's Chicago Tribune has a quite lengthy piece on the latest flap. It indicates that there a number of scholars [that] do not agree with the Jefferson Heritage Society's findings."
By my reading, Sampson's message indicated that a "number of scholars" mentioned in the Tribune article did not agree with the Society's findings. I noted (incorrectly) that Gordon-Reed was the only scholar mentioned in that piece by name; I should have mentioned Jordan as well. If Professors Lewis and Bernstein were quoted in the article, I must have missed that. Undoubtedly, a number of scholars won't agree with the TJHS report, but my comments were a reflection upon the article, not a slight toward any particular historian or a misread of the state of the historiography; again, I do not disagree that a number of scholars will disagree with this soon-to-be released report.
That stated, at this point I must suggest that a number of Bernstein's comments do seem confounding by design, two of which I'd like to discuss:
1) Bernstein has noted a number of times in this thread that "there is more to dispute than resumes," although that has not stopped him from doing just that (disputing resumes) several times. In taking this line, he has followed Gordon-Reed, who argued in the Tribune article that:
"None of these [commission] people, except for [Old Dominion University history professor emeritus] Alf Mapp, has written extensively about Jefferson's life. It's strange."
The implication is that only biographers of Jefferson who have written previously or extensively on Jefferson's life can comment on the findings of recent years. Bernstein takes this a step further. As he has written in this thread:
"None of the menbers of the Scholars Commission has written or published on such clearly relevant subjects as the social history of slavery, history of the family and sex relations, the laws governing slavery, or miscegenation."
Since Gordon-Reed and Bernstein both are law historians, and not social, family, or gender historians, and since both had not written biographies of Jefferson previous to the start of the latest controversy in the ongoing Jefferson-Hemings saga, both would appear to be unqualified to judge this matter as well, following this logic--or would at least be as unqualified as the commission members, irrespective of the commission's various studies on aspects of Jefferson's thought or politics, or of their formidable collective experience as biographers.
[For the record, I might also point out that Bernstein has neglected to mention David Mayer's _The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson (Constitutional and Democracy)_, as well as Robert Ferrell's various texts that cover the diplomacy of the period in his resume critiques to date.]
2) Following up on this point, as I understand the history and purposes of this commission, it seems to me that it was created to review the latest scholarship and the new evidence released in the past few years, particularly the one-two punch of Gordon-Reed's influential study and the DNA "findings." Reviewing someone else's study is far different than writing a new study yourself. Considering the member's familiarity with Jefferson and the period, and their experience as editors, historians, and biographers, it seems readily apparent to me that they would have the qualities or tools needed to make such a judgment.
This history and these purposes undoubtedly help explain why someone like Gordon-Reed was not included on this commission: her work was what was being reviewed. To use another example, if a number of historians of the Whig Party were brought together to review or look at the findings of Michael Holt's new book, one would not necessarily expect that Holt would be given a seat at the gathering. Historians tend to be a collegial bunch, so conference sessions or books of essays that do such reviews tend to turn into celebratory fetes--but they don't have to, and historians should not necessarily be suspicious if they do not.
Before concluding, let me offer one last point about Bernstein's rebuttals and one about the controversy in the profession over the Jefferson-Hemings saga. When Bernstein addressed the commission's purported findings, he noted the inconsistency of those who have denied the theory by changing suspects--what Bernstein calls the Plan B strategy. Though Bernstein appears to be right on the particulars of this charge, one must ask, so what? New studies and new evidence should lead to new theories or new explanations. If they didn't, what would be the point of writing new histories? The consistency of Jefferson's "defenders" is in their argument that the proof of the affair is not conclusive; not in their specific arguments against it. We risk becoming like Emerson's "statesmen" if we make too much of a hobgoblin of consistency, or the lack thereof.
Lastly, a number of posters have recently noted that the continuing controversy over the affair displays America's continuing problems with race and gender. Maybe. In this latest round of the saga, however, I think it unwise to minimize the possibility that this most recent manifestation in all its various forms is about modern-day politics, and another Jefferson: William Jefferson Clinton.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 18, 2001.
Eyler Coates
Robert Burg makes an excellent point with regard to Bernstein's charge concerning "the inconsistency of those who have denied the theory by changing suspects" when Burg asks, "So what?" Are all future investigators restricted to only those theories proposed in the past? DNA evidence has been especially prominent in pointing out to investigators the innocence of those formerly thought guilty, and the guilt of persons not even suspected before. What kind of stultified thinking is it that would undertake a study or an investigation, and determine to limit the outcome to the conclusions already arrived at beforehand?
July 27, 2001
Richard B. Bernstein:
I did not intend to be confounding; however, I am confounded by claims that I was setting out to be deliberately confounding.First, I acknowledge my inadvertent confoundings -- to wit, my confusion of the 2001 symposium issued by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, Inc. with the Scholars Commission Report; and my misreading of the reference to the CHICAGO TRIBUNE article. I add to the list my failure to mention Professor David Mayer's THE CONSTITUTIONAL THOUGHT OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, which reposes on my bookshelf. I also note a confounding not of my own making. The TJHSInc symposium is an "older" publication only by a matter of weeks, as both studies are scheduled for publication in May 2001.
(By the way, the advance copy of THE JEFFERSON-HEMINGS MYTH: AN AMERICAN TRAVESTY that I have in my possession is labeled as an advance copy for the Monticello Society, the organization of Jefferson family descendants that controls access to the Jefferson family cemetery at Monticello. It appears that this advance edition of the TJHSInc symposium is intended to perform a forensic purpose with respect to the Monticello Society's decision whether to admit or bar Hemings descendants from being interred in the cemetery -- which raises interesting questions about their claimed impartiality.)
As to my comments characterized as "seem[ing] confounding by design," I address each below.
I.
I was not disputing the eminence of the scholars who are members of the TJSHInc Scholars Commission -- just their qualifications in analyzing matters of the history of race, sexuality, interracial sex, and slavery. I am by training a legal and constitutional historian (who is now completing a short life of Jefferson for publication next year); I defer to the expertise of those who have worked extensively in those areas in dealing with the thorny historical, evidentiary, and methodological issues posed by the Jefferson-Hemings controversy.
In particular, I confess to being extensively influenced by the devastating historiographical critique that Annette Gordon-Reed presents in THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS of such noted Jefferson scholars and historians as Dumas Malone, Merrill D. Peterson, Douglass Adair (a hero of mine, by the way), and John Chester Miller. The eminent scholars who are members of the TJHSInc Scholars Commission -- if the summary of their forthcoming report now available at http://www.tjheritage.org is any indication -- are vulnerable to the exact same critique. I suggest that one reason for this vulnerability is that training and experience in one sphere of doing history may not develop the nuanced sensitivities needed to undertake an inquiry into another field of history.
Professor Gordon-Reed is an experienced scholar in the law of evidence, which is a field that requires an extensive and nuanced approach to tricky and complex and disputed evidentiary issues. Anyone who reads THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS: AN AMERICAN CONTROVERSY with an open mind will recognize these qualities in the study.
II.
The TJHSInc Scholars Commission has announced the impending appearance of a mammoth 550-page study of the issue -- not merely the historiography but the historical issues themselves. They themselves stake a claim that they go beyond sifting the historiography to undertaking review of the historical problem itself. I respectfully suggest that I am not responsible for any confounding with respect to this question.
III.
Certainly any scholar or informed member of the public is capable of examining and considering the facts and differing interpretations in this case, including scholars whose fields are tangential to the issues raised in the case. But perhaps it is better to ask why no historian of race and slavery was included in the Scholars Commission. That Professor Gordon-Reed was not included was not, I respectfully submit, because it was her work that was being reviewed, for, as I have already shown, the mandate articulated by the TJHSInc and its Scholars Commission goes beyond reviewing a scholar's work to investigating the historical question itself.
Surely, such historians as Professors John Hope Franklin or Walter Johnson or Ira Berlin or Philip D. Morgan or Winthrop D. Jordan or Mechal Sobel or Eugene Genovese, to name just a few would have contributed significantly to the work of such a Scholars Commission. Similar questions arise with respect to the exclusion of specialists in the history of women and gender, such as Suzanne Lebsock or Linda K. Kerber.
To be sure, I do not wish to taint the Scholars Commission with the sins of omission and commission of the TJHSInc symposium. It is instructive, however, to note that in that latter study, the authors repeatedly use such studies as Michael Durey's pathbreaking revisionist (in the best sense) biography of James Thomson Callender, WITH THE HAMMER OF TRUTH (Univ. Press of Va., 1990), to prove points exactly the opposite of the arguments and evidence presented by the studies they cite. It is also instructive that nowhere in the summary report produced by the Scholars Commission do the august members of that body present critiques, even summary critiques, of the scholarship in question, save for a dismissive and misleading analysis of Frasier Neiman's article in the January 2000 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY. It may be amusing to dub this article a "Monte Carlo" study -- but it is not up to the standard that these august scholars propose to set for themselves.
IV.
I find the "Plan B" problem noteworthy precisely because the tone of the Scholars Commission summary report, and the tone of the TJHSInc symposium, use the language of the courtroom -- specifically, the language of criminal trials. The rhetoric is all that of defending Thomas Jefferson, refuting charges, combating libels and slanders (of the seditious nature, I suggest). Any experienced lawyer is familiar with the use of "Plan B" strategies -- but, to borrow language from Gordon Wood in a slightly different context, "as historians we have different objectives and aims."
The use of the rhetoric of criminal-defense lawyers -- and the Perry Mason/Johnnie Cochrane stance of the Scholars Commission's report and the TJHSInc symposium -- speak for themselves. Whatever these publications may be, they are not history.
V.
Finally, I find without merit the claim that the current controversy over Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings has anything to do with William Jefferson Clinton. I am aware that some have suggested that the timing of the DNA study's publication was intended to exonerate or palliate President Clinton's misdeeds by suggesting that if Jefferson previously did similar things, that precedent should get Clinton off the hook.
However, not only did Professor Gordon-Reed's study appear in 1997, eleven months before the exposure of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal -- serious scholars such as Winthrop D. Jordan (in 1968) and Edward Ayers and Scot French (in 1993) raised these questions before President Clinton's failings became a matter of constitutional concern. Further, the DNA study was commissioned and begun long before the exposure of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.
The attempts to link Jefferson with Clinton in this context have never come from those who have been persuaded by Professor Gordon-Reed's arguments. Rather, with one exception, they have come from those who were concerned with the political imbroglio surrounding President Clinton. The exception, Professor Joseph J. Ellis, raised the connection in his article in NATURE and since has repeatedly expressed his regret for what he has termed a facile historical analogy.
Thus, raising the relevance of Mr. Clinton to the current controversies over Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings seems not to be a historical or even a historiographical point worth making.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 19, 2001.
Eyler Coates
Richard Bernstein questions why no historians of race and slavery, and specialists in the history of women and gender were not included in the Scholars Commission. Bernstein named several historians who, he felt, "would have contributed significantly to the work of such a Scholars Commission." Perhaps the simple answer is, the Scholars Commission was concerned with the question of the possible paternity of Sally Hemings's children by Thomas Jefferson. The main issues were not race, or slavery, or women, or gender. With respect to Sally Hemings, the answers in those areas were undisputed: Sally was considered black, she was a slave, a woman, and her gender was female. Questions in those areas may be interesting to some investigators, but this was not the emphasis for the Scholars Commission.
Bernstein makes some strong charges about the authors of the TJHS book, The Jefferson-Hemings Myth, suggesting that they use a book by Michael Durey "to prove points exactly the opposite of the arguments and evidence presented by the studies they cite," but he fails to present a single example to back up his charge. Similarly, he passes a summary judgment upon the way the Scholars Commission treated the Frasier Neiman article about the "Monte Carlo" study -- a term, by the way, that Neiman uses himself -- and says that it is not up to the standards they propose for themselves, without providing any explanation other than his own conclusion. It is difficult to comment on such empty charges.
Again, Bernstein criticizes the Scholars Commission Summary Report for its courtroom tone or language, but offers no reasoned explanation other than to say that such proceedings "speak for themselves." Evidently, Bernstein is not making an argument or a reasoned explanation, but expressing his sentiments, presumably in hopes that readers will be persuaded by that alone. He decries the defending of Thomas Jefferson, the refuting of charges, the combating of libels and slanders, etc. But the reader is left to ask, again, So what? Thomas Jefferson has been attacked on this issue from the beginning. Charges have been made, and the charges were in the nature of libels and slanders. Is it not only natural that when a commission formed to investigate these matters should phrase their findings in the same terms? Deriding such procedures and designating them "the Perry Mason/Johnnie Cochrane stance" only appears to sink to the level of name-calling and ridicule. And as a great man once wrote,
"Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1813. ME 13:233
July 27, 2001
J. L. Bell:
In other aspects of this discussion, Prof Robert Burg makes a good case for the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society's choice not to invite Prof Gordon-Reed onto its committee since part of its task was to review her work. We should recall, however, that the committee did not even SPEAK to Gordon-Reed. And the group included Alf Mapp, who has written on the issue and whose work was therefore also under review.Prof Burg also wrote: "When [Richard] Bernstein addressed the commission's purported findings, he noted the inconsistency of those who have denied the theory by changing suspects--what Bernstein calls the Plan B strategy. Though Bernstein appears to be right on the particulars of this charge, one must ask, so what?" The committee's main argument against Thomas Jefferson's paternity seems to be that no one at Monticello named him as Sally Hemings's lover in the early 1800s. Yet no one mentioned the man the scholars point to, Randolph Jefferson, until 1998. So for one brother the committee finds lack of a particular sort of evidence to be compelling while for the other it ignores the lack of such evidence. That double standard is the "so what?"
Prof Burg is of course correct that "New studies and new evidence should lead to new theories or new explanations." But there's no "new evidence" favoring Randolph over Thomas; the DNA findings point to them equally, while the documentary evidence strongly favors Thomas. Prof Burg states, "The consistency of Jefferson's 'defenders' is in their argument that the proof of the affair is not conclusive." In fact, most authors who argued against Thomas's paternity were quite conclusive--until 1998. Only since the DNA findings have these writers or their successors adopted the "not proven" stance. As a comparison, read the latest report against Dumas Malone's "The Miscegenation Legend," Appendix II in JEFFERSON THE PRESIDENT: FIRST TERM, 1801-1805.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 19, 2001.
Eyler Coates
Mr. Bell writes, "The committee's main argument against Thomas Jefferson's paternity seems to be that no one at Monticello named him as Sally Hemings's lover in the early 1800s." It is difficult to understand why that single fact would seem to anyone to be the main argument. That single fact is one of dozens of pieces of evidence, and is hardly the main piece. Edmund Bacon's eyewitness account, Jefferson's own denial in his letter to Secretary Smith, Martha Jefferson Randolph's denial, and the confession of Peter Carr are certainly far more important than the mere fact that no one at Monticello named him as Sally Hemings's lover.
Apparently, Bell mentions this only to contrast it with the fact that no one at the time mentioned Randolph Jefferson in connection with Sally Hemings. Even that may not be so, however. As mentioned above, Edmund Bacon named someone he saw coming out of Sally's room early in the morning on several occasions, but we don't know who it was, except that it was not Thomas Jefferson. Nevertheless, Bell suggests that noting this lack of evidence with one brother and ignoring this same lack of evidence with the other is a "double standard." What Bell is doing, however, is comparing apples and oranges. Randolph Jefferson was an insignificant farm operator who received no attention from hardly anyone living at the time, other than his famous brother, who just happened to be the President of the United States. Hundreds of famous men visited Monticello and many wrote about their contact with Thomas Jefferson. None of them visited Randolph or wrote about him. The absence of comment on Thomas and Sally is certainly significant, whereas there was no comment on Randolph whatsoever. To speak of the writings about the two brothers in the same terms only reminds one of the story of the man who was searching for a lost key under a street light, not because he had lost it there, but because the light was better. There was much more "light" that was shined on Thomas Jefferson, and none at all on Randolph. There is no comparison.
The new evidence favoring Randolph is the revelation that he was invited to Monticello at the very time Eston was conceived. We are compelled to ask, who was more likely to excuse himself from playing host and entertaining guests, and then have an assignation with Sally Hemings, Thomas or Randolph? Obviously, Randolph, himself somewhat "mentally challenged," probably welcomed the opportunity to escape from intellectual conversations which only served to embarrass him. Moreover, there is NO documentary evidence that "strongly favors Thomas." There is much that strongly favors his non-involvement. The only documentary evidence that suggests it was Thomas is from people who could not have known from their own knowledge whether the evidence is true or not.
July 27, 2001
Robert Burg:
A few thoughts on J. L. Bell's many cogent points:1) Regarding the commission's decision not to even speak to Dr. Gordon-Reed and to include Dr. Mapp: I would have to hear from the commission itself before I could make a final judgment on either of those issues, but I could offer a few ideas here.
a) Dr. Gordon-Reed and her backers have done such a thorough job of making her relevant views on the subject known that the commission was likely familiar with her arguments;
b) As to including Mapp, there's always some value in looking at or hearing from the "extreme"--I'm borrowing this characterization of Dr. Mapp's view, for I've never read any of his work--of a position, as a sounding board or as a measuring stick. The extent that the other members of the commission agreed or disagreed with Mapp will be interesting to learn.
2) This leads me to another point, regarding the "defenders" of Jefferson in this matter. I think it a bit unwise to lump all the critics of the Jefferson-Hemings theory together, because in so doing, we tend to lose the nuances of their positions. As I understand the commission report, a number of views are presented in the final document, ranging from agnosticism on the subject to actually acquitting Jefferson of culpability. As a shorthand, I've followed the media take on the story and referred to the report as stating the evidence of the affair was not conclusive.
This point applies to the historiography as well as to the commission. Thus for some defenders of Jefferson--and even agnostics on this issue, who, by not completely accepting the Hemings account in some ways are defenders of Jefferson--there is no double standard, as Bell defined it, because no other suspect has been offered as an alternative. Think of the many accounts of Jefferson that never even bothered to explore this issue at all: all the accounts that just assumed Jefferson's "innocence" and left it at that. As to picking out an overstatement or misstatement from one particular defender or another, this is an exercise that can be done ad infinitum, and I would be surprised if the commission did not miss the opportunity to do this as well. I think it reasonable to predict that another round or two will have been lobbed at Fawn Brodie in the final report, for example.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 23, 2001.
J. L. Bell:
Robert Burg wrote:"As I understand the commission report, a number of views are presented in the final document, ranging from agnosticism on the subject to actually acquitting Jefferson of culpability. As a shorthand, I've followed the media take on the story and referred to the report as stating the evidence of the affair was not conclusive."
One of the ongoing themes of this historical debate--visible not only in the recent Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society-sponsored report but in Annette Gordon-Reed's book--is that popular media have simplified the evidence in favor of the opposing position. And indeed, a few hundred words in a newspaper or a few dozen on TV can't present the nuances of the historic record or scholars' analysis. That's why I went to look at the report itself, as it's been made available on the web.
The final paragraph of the majority report states:
"In the end, after roughly one year of examining the issues, we find the question of whether Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children by his slave Sally Hemings to be one about which honorable people can and do disagree. However, it is our unanimous view that the allegation is by no means proven; and we find it regrettable that public confusion about the 1998 DNA testing and other evidence has misled many people into believing that the issue is closed. With the exception of one member, whose views are set forth both below and in the more detailed appended dissent, our individual conclusions range from serious skepticism about the charge to a conviction that it is almost certainly untrue."
The minority of one, Paul Rahe of the University of Tulsa, takes the position of "believing it somewhat more likely than not that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Eston Hemings. . . . I remain agnostic as to the paternity of Sally Hemings's other children." He also speaks to the larger issue of Jefferson's exploitation of the Hemings family and other people.
The majority presented their conclusion as open-ended, if the spectrum from "serious skepticism" to conviction and certainty can be called such. Nevertheless, they clearly try to point to someone besides Thomas Jefferson as father of the Hemings children:
"Subsequent to the DNA tests, the most probable candidate for paternity of Eston Hemings was likely Randolph Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's much younger brother, or perhaps one of at least four of Randolph's five sons. . . . Emphasizing again that we are not reaching a finding that Randolph Jefferson was Eston's father, it does appear that the circumstantial case that Eston Hemings was fathered by the President's younger brother is many times stronger than the case against the President himself."
Since these scholars compared the evidence on two men, it's eminently fair to examine the standards they used. For Thomas, they find the lack of statements of his paternity from within Monticello in the early 1800s to be meaningful. For Randolph, they ignore the complete lack of any such statements for almost 200 years. They hold up Randolph's possible presence at Monticello on one occasion, but put down the work documenting that Thomas was there every time Hemings conceived. They erect hurdles to believing the memoir of a Hemings child, but set aside hurdles in evaluating statements from Thomas's legitimate descendants. That's why I characterized this committee as applying a "double standard."
People with very high standards of proof can maintain that we'll never know if Thomas Jefferson fathered the Hemings children. But they should keep those same very high standards when it comes to similar questions, such as whether Randolph Jefferson fathered those children, whether John Wayles fathered Sally Hemings, and even whether Thomas Jefferson fathered Martha Jefferson Randolph. That's not what the picked scholars who wrote this report have done.
Incidentally, the report distributed in pdf form shows evidence of having been created by several hands, or several word-processors. The opening summary and conclusion have different line spacing from the rest. The section titled "Madison Hemings 1873 Statement" has no indents at the start of paragraphs while other sections do. Though I have no reason to doubt that all the committee members reviewed the text of every section, I wonder if who drafted what was significant.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 23, 2001.
Eyler Coates
Mr. Bell is correct in stating that "a few hundred words in a newspaper or a few dozen on TV can't present the nuances of the historic record or scholars' analysis." That is why it is so difficult to understand how Mr. Bell could single out the fact "that no one at Monticello Named him [Thomas Jefferson] as Sally Hemings's lover in the early 1800s" as he did above, and call that "the committee's main argument against Thomas Jefferson's paternity." This whole controversy is full of complex data, most of which is not explicit, and singling out one minor piece of evidence is hardly recognizing "the nuances of the historic record or scholars' analysis."
Mr. Bell compares the standards used for Thomas and Randolph Jefferson and maintains that they should be the same. But he fails to recognize that the evidence available is in no way comparable. We know where Thomas Jefferson was every day of his adult life, whereas we know practically nothing about Randolph. There is a vast number of letters by eminent men with reference to Thomas, whereas there is practically nothing related to Randolph, and little more that relates to Sally Hemings than the fact that he was invited to Monticello when she became pregnant. The fact that Randolph was almost certainly at Monticello when Eston was conceived is important, because Eston is the only child of Sally Hemings that has been shown by DNA tests to have some Jefferson for a father. The fact that Thomas Jefferson was there every time Sally conceived is not as significant as Mr. Bell would suggest, because NO ONE was likely to be visiting Monticello EXCEPT when Thomas Jefferson was there. Madison Hemings's "memoirs" attested to facts of which he could not have direct knowledge, whereas the statements by Thomas Jefferson's legitimate descendants were concerning things that they themselves knew and witnessed. Mr. Bell calls this a "double standard," but in fact it is a recognition of the fact that different kinds of evidence must be evaluated differently.
The Scholars Commission sought not to determine who was the father of Sally Hemings's children, but to evaluate the evidence that pointed to Thomas Jefferson. They did not determine the questions which Mr. Bell says they should with the same high standards. They did not answer questions of paternity related to Randolph, John Wayles or even Martha Jefferson. Thus, it is unfair to accuse them of not keeping and applying the same high standards with all these question, because they did not attempt to answer those questions. Their focus was on one person only.
July 27, 2001
Sharon Block:
At the risk of contributing to a tempest in a teapot, I'll add one more comment to the Jefferson-Hemings debate. I've read what is available of the TJ Heritage Society's report, and do wonder how a group whose avowed purpose is to "stand always in opposition to those who would seek to undermine the integrity of the name of Thomas Jefferson" could fund a truly independent report.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 24, 2001.
Eyler Coates
Sharon Block wonders how a group whose avowed purpose is to "stand always in opposition to those who would seek to undermine the integrity of the name of Thomas Jefferson" could fund a truly independent report. The answer is very simple. First, you get $20,000 from an anonymous donor, then turn the spending of it over to a competent scholar from outside the organization who is granted complete independence, and who does not even make progress reports or let the initiating organization know who the members of the commission are! The chairman then decides on the members of the commission, and the commission thus formed independently selects additional members and determines how it should proceed, who it shall interview (no one from the TJHS), and all other matters related to its mission. It would be difficult to imagine a commission that was more independent of its initiating agency.
It is interesting to note that Block's question implies an admission that the attacks upon Jefferson do indeed "undermine the integrity of the name of Thomas Jefferson," or have that as their purpose or result. This inadvertent admission also calls into question the suggestion by some that this alleged affair only makes Jefferson "more human" -- unless one also wants to add that being without integrity is also being "more human."
July 29, 2001
Linda
I have fully enjoyed and profited from the discussions presented here and the information made available by so many on the life and writings of our political (and for some, spiritual) "father", Thomas Jefferson.
Certainly the preservation of his reputation is important to those who admire and respect him. I think that through the simplicity, the grandness, and the pursuit of a better way, the appeal to reason found in his writings will always be treasured by lovers of liberty. His personal life will always be held suspect by others who will rely on the Sally Hemings controversy to promote a personal agenda.
I am just a little person living at a time far removed from Jefferson. For me personally it matters not what people say about him, for I have available to me (thanks to the hard work of many) enough information to make my own judgments. What matters to me is, intent.
It is not Thomas Jefferson on trial. It is the intent and motives of his detractors that, if found suspect, puts THEM on trial.
Thanks so much for the opportunity to participate.
July 25, 2001