[mrustow]

Devastating expose of one of the biggest race hoaxes in recent years.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

This is old new. We know today that it was actually Strom Thurmond that fathered Sally Hemmings children. ;-)

[j_tull]

TJ fan bump for later

[billbears]

Jefferson bump

[TomServo]

Ping! I believe you had a few links on this junk.

[x]

Good article, but this is a cheap shot: "ignoring the fact that unlike fiction, history is about what DID transpire, not what COULD HAVE transpired." We don't know "what DID transpire," and Stix is as much in the business of looking at "What COULD HAVE transpired" as anyone he criticizes. Probably the verdict is "not proven," and historians have made too much of the rumors. But Stix is not less inclined to use hearsay and rumor when it suits him, and one can't stop historians from looking into such stories. The "Jefferson wouldn't do that" response naturally provokes many historians to demonstrate that he could or did.

While Stix is on the whole on more solid ground than those he criticizes, one can't help pointing out that if Callender was a liar or scandalmonger, he had worked for Jefferson before turning against him. It's only fair that Jeffersonians have to face up to the sort of allegations that their leader encouraged against his own enemies.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Sobering.

Lies, damned liars, and liberals!

(Not much difference.)

[FormerLib]

Great post, thanks!

There is never any substitute for the truth.

[muawiyah]

The article seems predicated by the idea that one's children "sully" a father's name by their very existence if they are of an inappropriate race, class, sex, degree of physical perfection, not born within the confines of a standard, formal marriage.

This is wrong. The existence of a child does not shame a person. You do that on your own!

[Ohioan]

I have dealt with this same spurious claim about Jefferson in Civil War Reconstruction & Creating Hate In America Today & in correspondence with Lucian Truscott IV, over his efforts to ram this claim down the throat of Jefferson's other heirs, in Correspondence.

This, as the article you post suggests, is all part of an ongoing attack. Conservatives need to be aware of how this battle is being fought, not only for this issue, but to understand what is happening on a lot of other fronts in the ideological war as well.

William Flax

[MHT]

Thank you for this post. DNA proves that Eston was the son of a Jefferson, but WHICH Jefferson cannot be answered without DNA from the mother, father, and offspring--none of which were tested. If they want to go to the trouble of exhuming all three and THEN conclude that Tom fathered Sally's littlest boy--fine. Until then, they are making an exact science into pseudo-science and rewriting history with a political agenda.

[willyboyishere]

Truth or hoax, it's all part of the GLORIOUS AMERICAN MOSAIC!!!! (another part which is that intersection where
tabloid journalism meets "historical scholarship").

[breakem]

Tell me what I got wrong. It could be any of 25 Jefferson men. She worked for TJ, went to Paris with him and so on. So he either is the father or he pimped her out to his family.

[sultan88]

ping

[greenwolf]

Devastating expose of one of the biggest race hoaxes in recent years.

It's not a hoax; the DNA tests were conclusive. Moreover, I can't picture how something like that amounts to any sort of a "smear" against Jefferson. The only people in the picture deserving of "smearing" are a number of neo-antebellum southern "historians" who apparently are still in denial over it.