I changed the subject line (from "New Presidential Descendant Claimant")
and I offer three replies to Anne Pemberton, whom I thank for her
thoughtful comments -- which I believe illustrate why there's still a lot
to discuss about Hemings-TJ, even if it's true that few paternity
disbelievers or paternity believers are likely to switch sides. As I try
to say towards the end below, I believe this is actually a lot bigger than
the mere paternity question.

1. She wrote:
> I see your point that the Jefferson DNA line could have
> come from a slave or other person bearing the same genes,
> but I have to question whether the outcome complies with
> what we know of both science and history. Go back to your
> high school biology study of yellow peas and green peas. If
> a pea mixed of yellow and green peas is paired with another
> pea of yellow and green, the likelihood of the resulting
> offspring being true yellow or true green drop off drastically.
> Yet, Sally did not have children even as dark as herself
> according to eyewitnesses. It would therefore be scientifically
> contrary to include a slave who was only 50% white as the
> mate to 50% white Sally and produce all children who were
> lighter than she was, light enough to pass as white and
> disappear from the historic record. If Sally had children
> by a 50% slave, at least 1-2 of her six-seven children should
> have been "throw-back" and darker than her.
For all I know, this is an impeccable analysis. For all I know, the
eyewitness-and-skin-color parts of it are impeccable too. For all I know,
this analysis is completely and totally and utterly correct. But here is a
hard point to get people to see: in most respects, including this one, I'm
not proposing proof or disproof of the paternity thesis. I'm only talking
about which Hemings-TJ claims can and can't logically invoke the authority
of DNA science. In the press and elsewhere, some regularly assume -- or
even claim -- that the circle of paternity candidates includes only
members of the acknowledged, extended Jefferson family. Well, maybe it
does, but any claim of DNA proof for that view is science confusion or
abuse. Absolutely nothing whatsoever in the DNA molecular findings tells
us anything whatsoever about the size of the circle of paternity
candidates. All we know from the molecular findings is that that circle's
members carried a Jefferson family DNA marker.

2. She wrote:
> I think the notion of a slave father to Sally's children needs to be
chucked
> into the same trash bin as the "likely suspects" who were not present at
> Monticello during Sally's conception windows.
Maybe that's correct, wise and altogether fitting as a matter of
historical analysis. I don't know. All I do know is that when a
participant in any Hemings-TJ discussion makes the claim made here, she or
he cannot logically make it on the basis of the DNA molecular findings.

3. She wrote:
> I also think that it serves Sally poorly to continue to
> contend that her children had many fathers.
And she also wrote:
> I think it important to consider Sally's humanity
> when trying to decide who fathered her children.
> Slavery treated Sally with inhumanity, but we
> don't have to follow suit.

Here's where I got the revised subject line: "Serve Sally? Serve truth?"

A branch of my science argument from above applies here, but I won't
tediously recite it, except to say -- in a way that I'm genuinly sorry
will seem harsh to some ears -- that these two comments have absolutely
nothing to do with establishing what science has and hasn't proven. And
what science has and hasn't proven is the limited but important domain of
most (but not all) of what I toss into this overall debate.

But setting that science stuff aside, in my view there's something much
more important staring out at us from these two comments. I think they get
right down to the core of what's really going on inside the realm of many
(but not all) on the paternity-believing side of this whole volatile
controversy.

In my view what we are really talking about -- within that semi-specified
realm -- is what I like to call the admirable wish retrospectively to help
accord as much dignity as we can to those from whom dignity was stolen by
perverted, despicable slavery. I completely share that wish -- so much so
that I don't want to disrespect the formerly enslaved by distorting any
evidence, scientific or not, to help accord the dignity.

For me there's a big irony within the realm of those, including me, who
wish retrospectively to help accord as much dignity as we can to those
from whom dignity was stolen by perverted, despicable slavery. The irony
lies in the practical contrast between the Sally Hemings case and the case
of Fort Monroe, the place in the Commonwealth of Virginia that's important
in the history of liberty itself because it's where American slavery began
to die.

You can't do much about Sally Hemings and human dignity. You can do a lot
about Fort Monroe and human dignity.

Sally Hemings and Fort Monroe? This will seem to some like a big ol'
irrelevancy, if not a big ol' red herring. But it's not. Please let me
explain.

In Sally Hemings's case, the wish to accord dignity retrospectively
requires -- in some people's outlooks anyway -- acceptance of an intricate
chain of judgments and inferences about events that many dispute. If there
is paternity proof -- and maybe there is -- it's complicated.

But in the case of the self-emancipation that began at Fort Monroe with
the "Contrabands" Frank Baker, Sheppard Mallory, and James Townsend, all
that the retrospective dignity wish takes is some constructive historical
revisionism -- some improved interpretation about events that no one
disputes. The only thing complicated about it is for us to resolve to get
rid of the white supremacism that, a century and a half after the Civil
War, is still distorting our view of what actually happened in
Emancipation.

Was Emancipation really what I was implicitly taught years ago, namely,
some white politicians belatedly deigning to confer freedom on feckless,
helpless, passive victims?

I don't think it was. Baker, Mallory and Townsend weren't feckless,
helpless victims. They stood up and took a big risk for freedom, and when
they did, slavery began to die, because what they did inspired first
hundreds and then thousands and then tens of thousands.

Yet in the usual telling of the story -- the white-supremacist telling, in
that it presumes black inferiority -- those three Americans are usually
left without the dignity of even being named, whereas the white
politician-general Benjamin Butler is portrayed as the star of the drama.

Now, it's true that Butler was as admirably clever and constructive as he
could be in the circumstances. When the three men showed up at Fort Monroe
shortly after Fort Sumter, the grotesque and perverted laws of slavery
still applied. So he simply deemed them -- and kept them as -- contraband
of war, since they were, after all, human "property" legally.

That is, Butler invoked the laws of war and the perverted, grotesque laws
of slavery to thwart what history sometimes still -- stupidly, in my view
-- calls the three men's "rightful owners."

But look what laws Baker, Mallory and Townsend invoked when they
instinctively stood up and took a big risk for freedom. They invoked the
Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.

The preceding paragraphs, maybe melodramatic but I believe true, stemmed
from my conjecture, illustrated by Anne Pemberton's comments, about the
retrospective dignity-according wish that I believe motivates many
paternity believers. We'll leave the motivations of paternity disbelievers
for another time -- especially since we still operate in a world where
some paternity believers suspect or even assume (or even claim) that
paternity disbelievers are racists. That's a hard problem.

To get back to Anne Pemberton's comments:

To note that DNA science tells us absolutely nothing about the circle of
paternity candidates is not to "contend that her children had many
fathers." (Not that she was necessarily addressing me.) It is to respect
science and history by respecting facts. I too wish retrospectively to
help accord as much dignity as possible to those from whom dignity was
stolen by perverted, despicable slavery. But I deny that that worthy wish
justifies distorting facts. And I assert that Virginians and Americans and
others who really care about that worthy wish ought to be paying attention
to our effort to save Fort Monroe from people who don't care about history
at all. To do that, please visit http://www.cfmnp.org/ .

The Hemings-TJ paternity question remains important. Sally Hemings's
dignity remains important. But in the matter of Fort Monroe, you can
actually _do something_ for an endangered place that symbolizes both the
death of slavery and cherished notions about human dignity.

Thanks. Sorry I'm not clever enough to be briefer.

Steve Corneliussen

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