David,

May I please suggest that you or anyone else, Kevin, Jon, Dan Jordan,
Peter Onuf, Joseph Ellis, AGR and any of the others may wish to ask
questions and state WHY you believe TJ is guilty and list them 1, 2, 3,
etc. and I will answer each question. Fair enough? As you
state..........nothing proves him guilty SO why do folks write lies and
sell books?? I don't consider that I set the "bars to high" what are we
talking here, asking truth when discussing a founding father or down in
the gutter talk that some recent posters have written. Yes, pose your
beliefs.

Herb

Kevin Hardwick wrote (in response to remarks by Herb Barger): 
>"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."

What Kevin is pointing out is exactly what academic historians are
trained to do: to take evidence, analyze it -- ask reasonable questions
of it -- and then build an interpretation based on that analysis.  This
is intended to move us in the direction of a better understanding of the
past.  But Mr. Barger rejects the reasonableness of the question that
Jon Kukla (and others -- including myself in that number) has asked.
Indeed, Mr. Barger's depiction of the issue of a possible Jefferson
paternity as somehow libelous or part of a conspiracy to destroy
Jefferson makes is difficult to make reasonable inquiries  Mr. Barger's
questions however set the bar too high -- in the direction of
ascertaining Truth.  But the evidence is so murky -- so many
contradictory accounts, so many axes ground from callender onward, so
many layers of familial protections, such uncertain science now -- as to
preclude ever actually finding that Truth.  No doubt this is the most
vexing problem for the self-appointed protectors of Jefferson's
reputation: it cannot be proved conclusively either way -- as much as
Mr. Barger and others have whittled away at the evidence in favor of
paternity, I still have seen no compelling evidence that demonstrates
_conclusively_ that Jefferson did not father children by Sally Hemings.

Which gets us to stalemate here: academic historians accept that there
are some questions the answers to which are at best just "suggested" by
the available evidence, and other historians looking at the same
evidence might come up with reasonable intepretations of their own.
This is our professional obligation.

David Kiracofe



David Kiracofe
History
Tidewater Community College
Chesapeake Campus
1428 Cedar Road
Chesapeake, Virginia 23322
757-822-5136

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