Lyle,
If you peruse all my posts over the years, you will find that I have always
maintained that is was possible, probably, and then, likely, as I've seen
more and more evidence come to light. With the evidence presented in Kukla's
book on the Walker case, I am now convinced that Jefferson was not the man
of integrity that some try to paint him as. I now do not thing Jefferson has
much integrety to defend after all. The most damning evidence is that
Jefferson continued to try to seduce his neighbor even after he was married,
as illustrated in the fact that he accosted the woman in her own home, in
her own private sanctuary, while his wife slept nearby.
The Walker case may not damn Jefferson in regards to the situation with
Hemings, but it definitely put him on moldy, clay feet as far as the
integrity issue is concerned.
What is more upsetting than the details of the Walker case, and the strong
evidence toward the Hemings case, are the details on his disdain for women
and his efforts to derail women's equality, as well as equality of Africans,
at a time when they should have been made clear -at the birth of a new
nation.
It is no longer just an issue of whether Jefferson diddled his comely maid,
but whether than man even deserves to be lauded for ANYTHING he did to
establish the first democratic/republican form of government.
Anne
Anne Pemberton
[log in to unmask]
http://www.erols.com/apembert
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lyle E. Browning" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: PBS Misrepresentation of the truth on their web page in
Barger's opinion
> ONCE AGAIN, this is not a proof. It is an argument and in fact a cherry
> picked argument based upon your apparent predisposition to a viewpoint.
> And for the record, I am not referring and have NEVER referred to the
> published works of the various authors as pop- psychology, and certainly
> not Jon Kukla. Arguments have been marshaled for both sides of the issue
> and will not settle the matter. What appears to be your uncritical
> acceptance of a diarist without examination of mental template of the
> diarist is at best a rush to judgment. Having a dozen other folks weigh
> in with examples of the same apparent conduct by the planter class does
> not get farther along the line of proving that the one person did so.
> That's tarring the group with the brush, as in all Germans were Nazis.
>
> This whole issue is now way beyond being solved by argument.
>
> Lyle Browning, RPA
>
>
> On May 8, 2008, at 12:50 AM, Anne Pemberton wrote:
>
>> Lyle,
>>
>> Would that it were possible to just dig 'em all up and test them.
>>
>> I don't know if you have read Kukla's book, but it is certainly not
>> pop-psychology, but rests on the word of Jefferson's contemporaries as
>> much as the word of oral histories.
>>
>> If you have a copy of the book, I refer you to page 119 where the words
>> of a neighbor of Jefferson, General Cocke, referring to the instances of
>> slave mistresses, from his diary, are published:
>>
>> "I can enumerate a score of such cases in our beloved Ancient Dominion.
>> It is too well known that they are not few, nor far between ... Were
>> they enumerated with the statistics of the State, they would be found by
>> hundreds. Nor is it to be wondered at, when Jefferson's notorious
>> example is considered."
>>
>> and the same author, said, a few years later:
>>
>> "All bachelors, or a large majority at least, keep as a substitute for a
>> wife some individual of their own Slaves. In Virginia, this damnable
>> practice prevails as much as anywhere and probably more, as Mr.
>> Jefferson's example can be pleaded for its defense."
>>
>> I am reading now in Appendix A, which includes a selection of letters
>> exchanged about the ten year attempted seduction of Mrs. Walker, the
>> wife of a supposedly close friend, which was carried on even after
>> Jefferson was married, and is established as fact by the exchange of
>> letters in which Mr. Walker asks for the intervention of mutual friends,
>> including Justice John Marshall, to reclaim his honor.
>>
>> Although I have known about the Hemings affair for some many years, this
>> is the first I have seen such details as establish that no only did
>> Jefferson press the wife of his friend for immoral purposes, but that he
>> also lied to his daughter about why relations with the Walkers had
>> cooled on the family's return from France during which time, Mrs. Walker
>> finally felt comfortable telling her husband why she objected to
>> Jefferson as executor of her husband's will for the moral danger it
>> would place her under in the event the he met an early demise.
>>
>> It is also interesting that Kukla brings out the fact that the terrible
>> liar, Callender, was employed by Jefferson to write scandelous lies
>> about John Adams and his presidency.
>>
>> What goes around comes around.
>>
>> Thank you, Jon Kukla, not only for researching and writing this book,
>> but also for letting us know about it on this forum. I find your book
>> most enlightening, and a fair reading of your book will put a lot of the
>> nonsense that has been said on this list in recent days, to the lie.
>>
>> Anne
>>
>>
>>
>> Anne Pemberton
>> [log in to unmask]
>> http://www.erols.com/apembert
>> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lyle E. Browning" <[log in to unmask]
>> >
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 10:34 PM
>> Subject: Re: PBS Misrepresentation of the truth on their web page in
>> Barger's opinion
>>
>>
>>> On May 7, 2008, at 9:55 PM, Anne Pemberton wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Herb, it is always better to look at the broader picture. Limiting
>>>> your belief to only scientific testing is limiting your ability to
>>>> approach this issue logically.
>>> Good grief, here we go again. This is getting to the point that it's
>>> as bad as 10 archaeologists in a room and having 11 opinions as to
>>> what something means. All the argument in the world is not going to
>>> solve the case as it is now.
>>>
>>> Science has that capability. If you want the answers, then DNA testing
>>> is the only means of getting there. All this pop- psychology of WWTJD
>>> is just so much hot air. It gets us not one jot farther along to
>>> solving the problem than before. But, alas, we're dealing with
>>> fallible, or stubborn or whatever people who have agendas, conscious
>>> or not. Were it in my power, I'd dig up the lot of them and get some
>>> DNA and chips fall where they may.
>>>
>>> In my world, this has happened all too often. We get a big man who's
>>> word is law, we argue the case and we all get to a point where we can
>>> go no farther. Until the next bit of evidence comes in and then off
>>> the pedestal the big man comes. We propose another grand idea and we
>>> argue the evidence to exhaustion and then wait until the next bit
>>> comes along. That's how science works. It's evidence driven, and is
>>> not ultimately driven by posturing in one direction or another.
>>>
>>> Bottom line is if you want to know whether TJ dallied with SH, dig'em
>>> up and test'em, all of them. The truth is in the alleles.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If you clear your mind of your prejudice, you may be able to let in a
>>>> little sunshine and logic.
>>> May you live by those words as well.
>>>
>>>
>>> Lyle Browning, RPA
>>>
>>>
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