Herb--

You write:  "I read such statements as (pg 116) "nevertheless, the available evidence now suggests that Callender was essentially correct about Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings." 

This statement is in fact true.  What Kukla says, in essence, is that in his view, the evidence suggests (but does not prove) that Jefferson had a sexual relationship with Hemings.  Kukla's view is more or less the same as mine, and I would submit that of most reasonable people who have examined the evidence.

I doubt we will ever know for certain whether Jefferson and Hemings had a sexual relationship.  But the circumstantial evidence suggests that there was one.  It is just circumstantial evidence--it is suggestive, but not definitive.  But then, that is what I take Kukla to be saying when he writes "the available evidence now suggests."  We don't know for sure, but the extant evidence in favor of Jefferson's paternity of (some of) Heming's children is sufficiently persuasive to allow a reasonable, if tentative conclusion that Jefferson did in fact have sex with Hemings.

I should add that people like Annette Gordon-Reed strike me as relatively conservative.  They want to retain some value in Jefferson's private life.  The tenor of the profession, to my read, is to hang Jefferson out to dry as a repulsive character, on the scale of say, Rousseau.  To my read of her most recent book, Gordon-Reed goes out of her way to defend Jefferson.  I have a considerably darker, and less redemptive view of the man.  I tend to think that Hamilton got Jefferson right.

Just saying.

All best,
Kevin

Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University

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