Henry asserts that to achieve “balance” in her article, Maura Singleton
gave support to “dissenting views.” These, apparently, would be the views
of those who do not believe there is sufficient “credible evidence” to find
Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings' children. By peppering her article with
all these contrary suggestions, she failed to follow the “proper view” and
further the  mission of the Monticello staff, and the historians who follow
their lead, to declare by fiat that Thomas Jefferson was the father of
Sally Hemings' children.  Actually, I thought she should have given much
more weight to the research and findings of the Scholars Commission. Their
year long project produced a highly credible report that essentially
absolved Jefferson. They found it significant that the DNA linked the
Jefferson line to only one of her children. There were three others whose
fathers are yet unknown. The only demonstrative evidentiary link of these
children to Jefferson is that he was “perhaps” at Monticello when they were
conceived.  Now, as to the “contemporaneous historical evidence,” that
catches me unaware. Was there someone other that Madison’s declaration
fifty years after Jefferson’s death?

Richard E. Dixon
Editor, Jefferson Notes 
Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
703-691-0770
fax 703-691-0978



> [Original Message]
> From: Jurretta Heckscher <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 8/27/2007 10:58:46 PM
> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] inter-racial sex acceptable?
>
> Good points, Henry--and good to have you back!
>
> It seems to me that the post-DNA-test clincher in this hydra-like  
> debate (which I hesitate to mention for fear of causing another head  
> to sprout, one way or the other) is the fact that yes, other  
> Jeffersons COULD have been Hemings's lover.
>
> But there is no contemporary evidence that any other Jefferson WAS.
>
> Therefore, if you combine
> (1) the contemporaneous historical evidence--i.e., the testimony from  
> those alive and in the vicinity during Hemings's childbearing years-- 
> with
> (2) the new scientific (DNA) evidence,
> the only candidate for paternity who fits both sets of data is TJ.
>
> For myself and for many of us, I suspect, that really does settle the  
> logic of the matter, and hence the presumptive historical facts,  
> pending the (unlikely) emergence of additional contemporaneous  
> historical material.
>
> One might think it high time to redirect the zeal, resourcefulness,  
> minutia-mindedness, and energy that this matter has elicited toward  
> some other problem of Virginia history, or American history, or world  
> history, or even Jeffersonian history, instead.  But of course, the  
> relentless resilience of the debate is an interesting subject of  
> history in its own right, down to and including the present, as Ed  
> Ayers and Scot French demonstrated to us some years ago.
>
> --Jurretta, promising to stomp on all hydra heads on her way out
>
>