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Date: | Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:37:59 -0500 |
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Herbert,
When one newspaper gets a "scoop" in a small city or town, the opposition
paper is sure to declaim it. It is the ways newspapers go. I remember it
that way from my childhood in a small city in PA, where the afternoon and
the morning papers competed, as did the Times and the Dispatch in Richmond
when I first got here. There is still the same old warfare between the Post
and the Times in NY. I'm not sure that there are any other cities that still
support two newspapers that compete.
Your scenario of Dolley hearing YEARS before of the possible birth of a
(disdain heard) male slave child.... is just plain silly and shows how
little respect you have for the other people in this story other than your
great, saintly hero.
Maybe you can cite the Jan 19th even that Dolley was definitely hostessing
in Washington on that date. Otherwise, I'm inclined to believe there is
story here, and you/we are not yet tuned in to it. Go with the presumption
that there was some exchange between Sally and Dolley over the naming of the
forthcoming baby, and let your imagination fill in the details. If Dolley
made the promise several months before the birth, it would likely confirm
the fact that she forgot about promising a gift. That is consistent with the
history of how white people did treat those "inhuman" slaves that they did
not realize were the bedmates of their host!
Knowing that his "urges" led him down the dark path he had declared in his
principles that one should not go, it is not surprising that Jefferson swept
as much proof as he could under the rug. That the minimal proof exists is
that much more informative considering the dark privacy Jefferson wrapped
around his "personal affairs". In today's world a person who hid their
personal affairs so carefully from the public would never make it to the
highest office in the country. He'd be consigned perhaps to be a
dog-catcher...
Anne
Anne Pemberton
[log in to unmask]
http://www.erols.com/apembert
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
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