Posted on 09/06/2011 6:16:23 AM PDT by tellw
WASHINGTON—The alleged liaison between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings entered a new phase upon the release of an updated scholarly report at the National Press Club on Sept. 1. The “Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission” seeks to overturn the widely held belief that the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States had an affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, and was the father of one or more of her children.
The liaison has gained acceptance and notoriety in popular culture. In February 2000, “Sally Hemings: An American Scandal” was shown as a mini-series on CBS, starring actor Sam Neill as Thomas Jefferson. The series dramatizes a teenage Sally, who served as maid to Jefferson’s daughters Martha and Mary, entering into a relationship with the 46-year-old widower in Paris when he was serving as ambassador to France. Thus begins a 38-year relationship, resulting in male offspring that resemble Jefferson, according to this dramatization. Nick Nolte and Thandie Newton starred in “Jefferson in Paris,” which portrays a freely chosen romance between the two, bitterly resented by Jefferson’s daughter.
This new report rejects this account as not credible.
Jefferson privately denied the story, but made “a decision not to comment upon accusations made against his character,” said professor Robert F. Turner, currently at the University of Virginia School of Law, who spoke at length at the National Press Club book release. Politics in Jefferson’s time could get very nasty. According to Turner, the story of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship was first printed in a newspaper by someone who expected a payoff from Jefferson for lying about John Adams, which he claimed enabled Jefferson to win the election for president. Not even Jefferson’s political adversaries, Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, took the story seriously, according to Turner.
Historians Disagree Historians fall on both sides of the controversy. The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation (later “Memorial” was dropped) looked at evidence, including DNA results from a 1998 study, and concluded in a report in 2000 that there was “a high probability that Thomas Jefferson was the father of [Sally Hemings last child] Eston Hemings, and that he was perhaps the father of all six of Sally Hemings' children listed in Monticello records.”
Jefferson said that if a parent could not restrain 'the intemperance of passion' toward a slave by reason, 'it should always be a sufficient [motive] that his child was present.'
—Robert F. Turner, professor, University of Virginia School of Law However, the foundation stated that, “Thomas Jefferson's paternity of one or more of Sally Hemings's children cannot be established with absolute certainty.”
Many Jefferson admirers felt that the foundation did not give Jefferson “a fair hearing,” said Turner. The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS) was therefore created and invited Turner to set up the Scholars Commission, consisting of over a dozen senior scholars to re-examine the evidence on the paternity of Hemings’s children and issue a report. Turner became the chairman of this commission. He said he insisted that the selection of the members be independent of the TJHS and that there would be no outside interference.
The 432-page Final Report of the Scholars Commission released at the news conference is an updated and expanded version of the one released in 2001. With one “mild” dissenting vote, the panel scholars strongly disagreed with the foundation.
Related Articles •The Origins of Labor Day It was much more likely that the father of Hemings’s youngest son was the president’s brother Randolph or any of Randolph’s five sons, “all of whom were invited by Jefferson to visit Monticello shortly before Eston’s most likely conception date,” said Turner.
Next...Mistaken Beliefs in the Jefferson-Hemings Controversy
Mistaken Beliefs in the Jefferson-Hemings Controversy
DEFENDING JEFFERSON: Professor Robert F. Turner, says that the allegations of an illicit relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings and that he fathered one or more of her children is most certainly not true. (Gary Feuerberg/The Epoch Times) Some beliefs popular among the public and the academic community about Jefferson are questionable. One is the belief that the 1998 DNA tests reported in the esteemed British science journal, Nature, established that Thomas Jefferson was the father of at least one of Sally Hemings’s children. The title of the article, “Jefferson Fathered Slave’s Last Child,” facilitated this interpretation. While the title is literally true, it could easily mislead reasonable people to conclude that the findings referred to Thomas Jefferson, said Turner.
The researchers, led by Dr. Eugene Foster, tested Y-chromosomal DNA of male descendants of Jefferson’s cousins and Hemings. The study concluded that the descendants of Eston Hemings, her youngest child, matched the Y chromosome of the Jefferson male line. Eston, who later took the name Eston Hemings Jefferson, was fathered by one of the more than 24 Jefferson men living in Virginia.
Later, Foster tried to clarify that President Jefferson was one of many possible fathers.
People sometimes err in saying that the DNA tests used a sample of Thomas Jefferson’s DNA, but that is not true. One would have to exhume the third president’s body, and no one seems to want to disturb the remains of Thomas Jefferson.
The book seeks to refute the other claims about the Jefferson-Hemings relationship. These include the alleged “extraordinary privileges” Hemings and her children received, which the “Thomas Jefferson Farm Book” does not support. Claims handed down in oral histories through generations were also addressed. The idea that Thomas Woodson was Jefferson’s son was disproved by DNA tests on Woodson’s descendants.
Why the Fuss? The 12 professors, who signed their names to the report, and were not compensated for their research, were motivated to redeem the good character of Thomas Jefferson. But were they exhibiting racist views, opposing interracial sex?
No, says Turner.
The alleged liaison began when Hemings was only about 15, when she was described by Abigail Adams as very immature and not up to the task of watching over Jefferson’s 8-year-old daughter. Jefferson would have been 46. That would not speak well of Jefferson’s character.
Related Articles •The Origins of Labor Day Jefferson denounced the sexual exploitation of slave women, said Turner. Jefferson said that if a parent could not restrain “the intemperance of passion” toward a slave by reason, “it should always be a sufficient [motive] that his child was present.” It is not believable that Jefferson would risk his reputation and risk his children seeing his conduct by beginning a relationship with the immature Hemings, hoping that she would be discreet about it, said Turner.
“Such behavior would be totally inconsistent with everything we know about Thomas Jefferson,” he said.
Who thought it to begin with, a bunch of uneducated liberals,
We will likely never know if Jefferson had sexual relations with slaves as many of his relatives did. We do know that Jefferson was not a person of the best character and was not in the same category as his fellow Virginians Washington and Madison.
When we toured Monticello, the guide told us it was now a known historical fact that our 3rd President fathered all six of Hemmings children. Fact???
ping for later read
One of those politically correct facts. Same as the bogus story about Washington. For Washington to have fathered the alleged black kid, he would have needed to ride on horse all day, to get to where the woman lived and then rode all the next day to get back home, to match the appointments in his book. He had black women and teenage black girls out his back door.
Tom was probably the smartest of a bunch of very smart founders of this nation.
Just the thought of Nick Nolte playing Jefferson makes me want to vomit.
Madison Hemings, one of Sally's sons, told the census taker in 1870 that Thomas Jefferson was his father, and a newspaper article in 1873 repeated his claims. There must not be a photograph in existence of Madison Hemings or it would be reproduced constantly in this controversy. So apart from the DNA, what we have is the question of whether Madison Hemings was telling the truth, which at best is whether he correctly repeated what he was told by his mother (and then the question is whether she told him the truth).
John Adams, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton were pretty smart too. George Washington was possibly not TJ's match intellectually, but he had greater political wisdom.
Have the historian founds the famous letter a child addressed to then President Jefferson with the simple question, “Are you my daddy?”......
There were plenty of white women around.
But IMHO, I think he was in love with his wife (who died quite young) until the day he died.
We do know that Jefferson was not a person of the best character and was not in the same category as his fellow Virginians Washington and Madison.
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What are you talking about? In Jefferson’s own time he was thought of as the best of characters. He was visited by more people from all over the world than any other person in his era.
Did he have sex with that woman? No. Any person doing even a little research would know that Randolf was the father of Sally’s child. The whole world knew it during Jefferson’s and Randolf’s lifetime. Randolf was a brother who never really amounted to much, he lived pretty much by the support of Thomas. He was a scoundrel, a lazy bum. Monticello languished under the direction of Randolf. Monticello was a profitable farm until Randolf let it slide. After Randolf it was never profitable again. Jefferson was never able to devote the time he wanted in his old age and visitors drained much of his resources.
Jefferson never wanted to serve in government. He was a researcher at heart and his greatest love was his wife and his second love was Monticello. He believed that when a persons country pressed a person in to service that it could not be refused. Jefferson personally tracked every penny he spent as president, he was a penny pincher extraordinaire. He was a man of the highest moral character loved and beloved by the majority of US Citizens in his life time.
He and Randolf had a very bad falling out because of his using Jefferson’s slaves for sex.
Randolf was hired by Jefferson to manage Monticello while Jefferson was in the service of his country in DC and in France.
There is nothing evil to say about Jefferson that is true. He was the finest patriot to have ever lived. It really irks me when people, especially people who don’t have a clue about what they are saying try to sully his name.
If a tour guide at Monticello said Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemmings child she or he should be fired.
A kinder, gentler, more moral man has not existed in the US.
Bears repeating. TJ was one of the greatest masters of political rhetoric (written version) who ever lived.
But he had little moral character compared to Washington or Madison.
He talked against slavery his entire life, but did absolutely nothing in practice against the institution, even in his own household. He lived extravagantly, died deeply in debt and only a few of his slaves were freed when he died.
Meanwhile, Washington did not talk loudly against slavery, but did spend the last years of his life putting his affairs into such order that when he died all his slaves were not only freed, but had provision made to help them get started in life.
I know which I find more admirable.
They didn't have motels in his day so the people would stay at Monticello and eat at Monticello all for free.
Most of Mr. Jefferson's Slaves were inherited from his father in-law. No he didn't get rid of his slaves. Most of his slaves were old people and cost Mr. Jefferson money. Freeing them would have saved Mr. Jefferson Money. Slavery was not the moral problem then that it is now. If slave ownership is all you can find against Mr. Jefferson then hold it against most of the founding fathers.
I believe this whole story was created to provide political coverage for another Jefferson’s misdeeds. William Jefferson Clinton.
It sickens me that the d-crats will trash our greatest leaders in order to somehow justify their own misdeeds.
At some point, Jefferson was publically rebuked by a MULATTO for calling blacks intellectually inferior. Jefferson apologized....sort of...
Soon after, Jefferson wrote to a friend that blacks were coming out of the woodwork claiming "brilliance".
Now, my problem is....My hometown school is now 90% black. Only 40% will graduate from high school. 100% of us graduated in 1961. Was Jefferson right??
And just what gives you two pendejos the moral authority to call Jefferson’s moral character into question?
Simply Yankee self righteousness is not enough to besmirch one of our greatest founders.
Ridiculous.
You owe what you enjoy today in large part to that man.
Smug ingrates.
and folks wonder why we fought to leave...who can blame us.
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