Hello Lyle Browning,
I'm new at responding to these and it appears like trees with branches as to
who receives your emails. Your comments about Jefferson's writings seem like
reasonable and educated observations. However, it brings to mind the saying
that politics is the art of dealing with reality. With this in mind, I think
the following is also worth including in your data before you come to your
final conclusions about Thomas Jefferson. I think Annette Gordon-Reed should
be a fairy tale writer or one who specializes in white lies, or worse,
deliberate lies about the person in his time whose actions did more to end
slavery and establish democracy in the United States than any one else I
know of. Stop ignoring verified historical documents published by experts in
genealogy and history. Stop ignoring his brother Randolph who even TJ said
was at times not incompetent to handle his own affairs, who lived 20 miles
away, who socialized with Thomas Jefferson's slaves, and who was widowed
about the time Sally began having babies, and remarried around the time
Sally stopped having babies; and Randolph's 4 sons who also visited and
lived at Monticello and were of child bearing age when Sally had her babies.
TJ's brilliance, accomplishments and principles, attractiveness and wisdom
indicate to me that it is likely if he wanted a lady or woman's company he
would not chose Sally; and that he could have his pick of many other
attractive and accomplished ladies and women. The way he lived his life at
home, when he was at Monticello, with his daughter, her husband who managed
Monticello, whose rooms were within seeing and hearing distance of TJ's; and
their 12 children; and rules that slaves were not to be in his quarters when
he was present indicates his tastes and rules of behavior did not lend to
Annette's made up tales. Does the fact that Sally didn't have her first baby
for 13 years after TJ's wife died mean anything to you? Annette believes in
one fairy tale, imaginary born in France, non existent baby, or one whose
father was not TJ. Only one of Sally's children's descendants, Eston, were
DNA tested; and TJ was 65 years old when he was born. I think Thomas
Jefferson's flaws in character are principally fictional ones made up by
egocentric, often lying observers. I recommend reading THE
JEFFERSON-HEMINGS MYTH published by The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society;
and JEFFERSON VINDICATED by Cynthia Burton, genealogist. The information in
these books stems from historical documents and formal records. I resent
writers who think they can throw around any garbage that comes into their
minds AND MASQUERADE THAT, AND CLAIM IT IS HISTORICALLY ACCURATE.
(Ms.) Adrian Zolkover
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anne Pemberton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 9:00 PM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Annette Gordon-Reed praised by Edmund Morgan
> Herbert,
>
> I am quite accustomed to your nasty replies anytime anyone praises those
> who disagree with you. Why you cannot just agree to disagree is beyond me.
>
> The fact that you can find NO proof that TJ fathered the children in
> question does not establish for a fact that he did not. It just means it
> has not been proven to your satisfaction. And, I feel quite certain that
> if you were faced with DNA evidence that Madison Hemings was fathered by a
> Jefferson male, you would go out of your way to argue it wasn't Tom.
>
> The fact that TJ is a Founding Father does NOT establish his sainthood.
> All of the Founding Fathers had flaws in character. Ben Franklin is
> probably my personal favorite Founding Father, and yet he publically
> admitted he father a child - a son that he raised to commit the same faux
> paus as his father, so that in his old age, Ben was raising that same
> grandson born out of wedlock. Ben was willing to admit his "mistakes" and
> did his best to make them right. TJ seemed, too often, to hide his
> mistakes from public scrutiny. What "honorable man" uses a writer to
> slander a friend, and then cries wolf when the same writer peeks into his
> own affairs?
>
> Anne
>
> Anne Pemberton
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.erols.com/apembert
> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Herbert Barger" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 7:01 PM
> Subject: Re: Annette Gordon-Reed praised by Edmund Morgan
>
>
>> Yes, and it is in many publications but this doesn't change the fact
>> that it is NOT true, but much of the media is involved in this agenda. I
>> tell the readers that this book and other similar recent books is part
>> of an agenda and there is NO proof that TJ fathered any slave child.
>> Please consult: www.tjheritage.org for a full Scholars Commission Report
>> (13 top scholars), who found NO proof of this liaison, SO may we not ask
>> the author........what is your agenda and who is behind it.......not
>> that I don't know the answer and have for several years. That is why I
>> founded the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society.....to counter the biased
>> research performed at Monticello and provide truthful and accurate
>> research to the public. We can use financial support at the above web
>> page address to continue our research.
>>
>> Herbert Barger
>> Jefferson Family Historian
>> Asst. to Dr Foster on the DNA Study
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Melinda Skinner
>> Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 8:56 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Annette Gordon-Reed praised by Edmund Morgan
>>
>> There's also an interesting article on the book in the New Yorker:
>> http://www.newyorker.com/search/query?keyword=8220 The Hemingses of
>> Monticello: An American Family 8221 (Norton 36 35)
>>
>>
>> --
>> Melinda C. P. Skinner
>> Richmond, VA
>>
>>
>> -------------- Original message ----------------------
>> From: Jon Kukla <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Posted at History News Network, Monday, September 22, 2008 Annette
>>> Gordon-Reed : Edmund Morgan calls her one of the best historians of
>> her
>>> generation <http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/54782.html>
>>>
>>> Source: *Marie Morgan and Edmund S. Morgan in the New York Review of
>> Books
>>> in the course of a review of Annette Gordon-Reed's new book, The
>> Hemingses
>>> of
>>>
>> Monticello*<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21855?utm_medium=email&utm_s
>> ource=Ca
>>>
>> mpaign+Monitor&utm_content=91964597&utm_campaign=Joseph+Lelyveld+on+John
>> +%26+Sar
>>>
>> ah%2c+Michael+Chabon+on+Obama&utm_term=Jefferson%26%238217%3bs+Concubine
>>>(10-9-0
>>> 8)
>>>
>>> The Hemingses of Monticello is a brilliant book. It marks the author
>> as one
>>> of the most astute, insightful, and forthright historians of this
>>> generation. Not least of Annette Gordon-Reed's achievements is her
>> ability
>>> to bring fresh perspectives to the life of a man whose personality and
>>> character have been scrutinized, explained, and justified by a host of
>>> historians and biographers. They have struggled to illuminate, and
>> sometimes
>>> to gloss over, the dark places in his life. Like many upright public
>> figures
>>> who know they are pure and their enemies vile, he was capable of
>> deviousness
>>> and treachery. He instigated the savage attacks by the anti-Federalist
>>> National Gazette editor Philip Freneau on John Adams, once his fast
>> friend,
>>> and was flummoxed rather than ashamed at being caught out paying
>> Freneau to
>>> be his mouthpiece. Such actions gave rise in Jefferson biographies to
>>> characterizations like "enigma" and "sphinx."
>>>
>>> The full review is at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21855?email
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jon Kukla
>>> www.JonKukla.com
>>>
>>> ______________________________________
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>>
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----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 9:23 AM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Annette Gordon-Reed praised by Edmund Morgan
> Lyle Browning's most recent most strikes me as imminently sensible.
>
> What we know for sure is that someone descended from Thomas Jefferson's
> grand-father was the father of one of Sally Heming's children. All of the
> rest of the evidence is circumstantial. The timing of Heming's
> pregnancies is certainly strongly suggestive of Jefferson's paternity, but
> its not conclusive either.
>
> My own view of the matter is: first, we don't know for sure, and barring
> further evidence likely will not; second, the weight of the circumstantial
> evidence makes it reasonable to say that Jefferson *likely* was the father
> of at least one of Heming's children; and third, that the issue of
> paternity represents a kind of distraction (albeit a highly profitable
> distraction, for the authors of all these books focused on the founders)
> from the deeper moral issues.
>
> Jefferson's anti-slavery writings lack the moral clarity of contemporaries
> like Alexander Hamilton, or even of his Virginia rival Patrick Henry.
> Jefferson was a racist, and a pioneer and popularizer of the paternalism
> that would emerge full blown in the pro-slavery arguments and assumptions
> of Antebellum Southern intellectuals and statesmen. Southern pro-slavery
> arguments never denied the humanity of the slave--merely the slave's
> capacity for adult reasoned self-government. Lacking the capacity for
> self-government, slaves could not be citizens. In its most destructive
> form, the pro-slavery argument asserted that slavery was in the best
> interest of the slave, because slaves required the benevolent and
> superintending guidance of their parent-masters.
>
> I do not need Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings to indict the
> man for hypocrisy or racism.
>
> All best,
> Kevin
> Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
> Department of History
> James Madison University
>
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