Near day's end of Nov. 1 Neil McDonald criticized Steve Corneliussen for his 
posting and its wording earlier that evening, subject as above.  After a 
lingering stomach-gnaw and taking time to study Steve's comments 
individually, and their context, I feel need to apologize.  It now seems to 
me that Steve was addressing this TJ-SH matter from within his heart and I 
should not have interfered with his intended impact.  I can only say that I 
initially 'mis'read some of his commentary as backing false claims and 
partisan politics rather than as important substance that Steve felt should 
matter to many.

A person's rational heartfelt beliefs may be challenged from another 
perspective or questions raised, but should never be mocked.

I am taking liberty to include Steve's posting below for review.

Neil McDonald

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "S. Corneliussen" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2008 7:22 PM
Subject: [VA-HIST] Why Hemings-TJ matters

(I changed the subject line -- and I join many other forum members in
asking, pleading, that lobbers of the same old Hemings-TJ bombs lob not.)

History professor Kevin Hardwick, after noting that he had shifted from
Hemings-TJ paternity belief to paternity agnosticism -- an interesting datum
for those who persist in asserting, without benefit of any actual survey,
that "most historians" believe the paternity thesis -- wrote concerning the
paternity question:

> But suppose we did know. What difference
> would it make for the way we commemorate
> [TJ] in our public history?  ... And if in fact it
> does not make any difference, why are we
> spending so much time talking about this?

(Please forgive my ruthless excerpting.)

The Hemings-TJ question matters because the truth matters.

It also matters because people across the country and around the world judge
that it matters. It comes up from time to time in Nature, the most important
forum for the international science enterprise. I remember learning in 2002
of a heated commentary about the question in the South China Morning Post. A
few days ago, a BBC report featured the question and confidently misreported
that "DNA evidence establishes beyond doubt that Jefferson fathered Sally's
children." ("Jefferson's hidden slave legacy," Allan Little, BBC News,
apparently reporting from Monticello:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7689734.stm )

The Hemings-TJ question matters because people incorporate it in various
ways into their thinking. It matters because people are engaged with, and
are nowhere near through with, a centuries-long, continually evolving
assessment of the slave era in light of the principles Jefferson led in
articulating -- and because people intend to compare what Jefferson
articulated with what Jefferson actually did.

It matters because one of those ways involves the admirable impulse -- maybe
only a beau geste -- retrospectively to confer a bit of dignity, if
possible, on those from whom the grotesque, perverted system of slavery
stole dignity and much else.

It matters because that admirable impulse appears also in discussions like
the one in this forum about the nature of the society that evolved from
Jamestown, and like the one about the degree of personal agency in the
actions of the Fort Monroe Contrabands.

It matters because liberty and dignity and race and women's rights and human
rights all matter.

It matters because personal honor matters, which means it matters whether TJ
was something equivalent to, or even remotely akin to, a statutory rapist or
a rapist outright, and whether he lied about it.

And it matters because love matters, which means it matters whether Sally
Hemings and TJ had some measure of hidden happiness heretofore mostly
unimagined.

I'll bet there's a lot more, but I'll just add this: it matters, and is
going to continue to matter, even if members of this forum are
understandably tired of the bomb-lobbing.

And this, which may sound partisan, and may sound political, but is
absolutely not, though it's most definitely corny: it's likely going to
matter even more starting next Wednesday, when Americans are likely going to
wake up into a changed American context, and are going to begin
constructively revisiting -- and constructively revising -- understanding of
American history, and indeed history itself, in ways that we haven't even
started to think about.

Thanks.

Steve Corneliussen
Poquoson, Virginia

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