Kevin,

We don't know anything FOR SURE as you suggest in your 2nd par. Have you
or most of our readers here been aware that TJ inherited a slave named
SANDY (denoting a red head or sandy brown hair. Who was Sandy's father,
some Jefferson?? How far off would we be to suggest that his male
descendants would carry his "possible" Jefferson DNA? So it is all up in
the air and we don't know for sure BUT let us not "tar and feather" TJ
by obvious lies until we can prove it, PERIOD. Yes, the continuing
Thomas Jefferson name alone does pay well for authors and people
peddling books to school boards for inclusion in curriculums and in
speaking engagements of certain Hemings family members.

I disagree with you that it is appropriate to say that TJ was "likely"
to be the father of one Sally child. Or is he likely NOT to be the
father? On what grounds do you see this? Certainly the DNA did not prove
this. Monticello in a biased study concluded that not only possibly one
but possibly ALL of Sally's children were fathered by TJ. Anyone see an
agenda here? ONLY ONE Hemings was tested so what is this "ALL"
misinformation? And let us review he old statement that TJ was always at
Monticello when she became pregnant........the records DO NOT reflect
where Sally was. Daughter Martha always came to Monticello with him on
arrival, he stopping at her home before proceeding to Monticello. I am
pretty sure that AGR's book will be made into a TV or movie special as
was two former productions BUT they were FICTION whereas this book is in
the historical non-fiction category. 

Herb Barger   

  


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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