No...I'm not a civil attorney but perhaps their influence has become apparent over the years. I am a forensic accountant and work with civil attorneys in the preparation of suits arising out of fraud and malfeasance. Perhaps they have stained my thinking through the years.
In this issue I strive to stick to the issue of probablities versus cultural assumptions arising out of myth, politics, race or hero worship. Jefferson is one of my heroes based upon his intellect, vision, and decency. If there was ever a man with an inherent concept of noblesse oblige it was Jefferson. It is imcumbent upon me to divorce myself form my admiration of Jefferson. But as you say, Jefferson was also a man and subject to the same passions and digressions from some idealized path as other men of great and lesser character.
I do object to the phrase " The Hemming's Party" which tends to clearly telegraph the position long before the analysis. A kind of verbal variant of the Texas Sharpshooter effect. Much like those who assert that Jefferson is absolutely and incontrovertibly the father of Hemming's child, those who absolutely deny the probability, (or in some case even the possibility) that Jefferson is the father of Hemming's child use much the same process. Each draws his target around the requisite number of bullets to score the appropriate and specious bulls eye.
I've a colleague who has coined what he humorously calls " The Man Fron Planet Borgon Approach" In any issue that is larded with vested interest or close held belief he suggests you hand it off to a notional " Man From Borgon". The man from Borgon has no experience with the culture, history or values of the question at hand. You hand him the data as it is and let him count and then give a summation of the probabilities. He isn't black, white, liberal or conservative, He's a Borgonian. In fact he hasn't clue what the hell the issue is about merely that he has been asked to decide. He most assuredly "has no dog in this hunt". The Man from Planet Borgon doesn't even know what a dog is.
Now...It is my opinion that The Man from Planet Borgon would come to the reasonable conclusion that on the totality of the evidence it is more likely than not that Jefferson was the father of one or more of Hemming's children. While it is difficult to put some numerical expression to that likelyhood I would put it at about 70% I do not exclude the possibility that some other Jefferson relative was the father. I put that possibility as significantly less at 30%.
While that may seem subjective it is, to some degree, based upon some familiarity with the data. It has to do with number of total access days of each of the possibles. While Randolph is often bruited as the " real father" and it is possible, his total number of access days in the requisite period are extremely limited.
There you have it..
Jefferson is still my hero and all's right in the cosmos.
In this issue I strive to stick to the issue of probablities versus cultural assumptions arising out of myth, politics, race or hero worship. Jefferson is one of my heroes based upon his intellect, vision, and decency. If there was ever a man with an inherent concept of noblesse oblige it was Jefferson. It is imcumbent upon me to divorce myself form my admiration of Jefferson. But as you say, Jefferson was also a man and subject to the same passions and digressions from some idealized path as other men of great and lesser character. As I see history, and I admit that I've been influenced by Popper, the field has less to do in practice with probabilities or cultural assumptions than it does with individual cases. My knowledge of this case leads me to no conclusion, as to who the father or fathers of Hemings' children was. The only conclusions I can come to are (for reasons given in previous posts): 1. The Jefferson in Paris story is a lie; and 2. The story of Jeffferson and Hemings having had a 40-year-long monogamous relationship is a lie.
Since those who support a new interpretion of Jefferson's life have no evidence upon which to support their claims, AND have been caught tampering with evidence which tends to contradict their claims, I see no reason to give credence to their claims.
I do object to the phrase " The Hemming's Party" which tends to clearly telegraph the position long before the analysis. A kind of verbal variant of the Texas Sharpshooter effect. Much like those who assert that Jefferson is absolutely and incontrovertibly the father of Hemming's child, those who absolutely deny the probability, (or in some case even the possibility) that Jefferson is the father of Hemming's child use much the same process. Each draws his target around the requisite number of bullets to score the appropriate and specious bulls eye.
Technically, you're right, and if I were writing a scholarly paper on the case, I would have to use some roundabout, terminally-clunky phrase, such as "those who dispute Jefferson's traditional biographers," but the clunky phrasing would still be nothing but a euphemism for "the Hemings Party," which is itself a euphemism for "that bunch of goddamned crooks who should be hung upside down nekkid, covered in honey, and left out in the midday, Texas sun."
Texas sharpshooter or no, I can accept the theoretical possibility of Jefferson's paternity, but whereas the paternity case in truth remains open, where it will likely remain for all time, the case regarding the wickedness of the low-down, dirty, egg-sucking dogs who engineered this hoax has for me been made beyond a shadow of a doubt.