Giving Thomas Jefferson the Business: The Jefferson-Hemings Hoax

A Different Drummer/Middle American News ^ | December, 2003 | Nicholas Stix

[AdamSelene235]

ping

[cyborg]

We will never know so yes I think it should be left alone. You know how human beings are,they're never satisfied.

[JustPlainJoe]

Their whole point of bringing this up as they did in 1997 was to show that OTHER respected Presidents also had sex with the hired help. Plain and simple.
If Jefferson did it, what's the big deal now? yuh-huh, yuh-huh, yuh-huh.....

[steplock]

It is an expose not only of the lies -- but the tacticts of lies (aka PROPAGANDA) that many on this list seem to ignore or gloss over.

It is not so much what is being said as HOW it was said. That is the best propaganda tactic because you cannot write it down in black & white for proof.

Inflection in speech - a sentence that endswith a lower tone towards the end gives the impresion of sadness or seriousness - where a higher tone denotes glee or ire.

You can "hear" a sneering tone of voice if you listen to ABC radio news when they mention President Bush or anything pro American. The TV does the same, but you have to close your eyes to hear it. TV is much better for propaganda because you don't hear it - it just infects you.

Listen to the stock market reports - eyes closed ...

pro feeling (higer pitched faster speech) The DOW rose 10 points in optomistic trade"

con feeling (slower and lower tone) "the DOW rose 10 points despite the news from...."

Con feeling (higher tone -happy- fast speech) the dow fell more than 1/2 percent...

THAT is the methods of propaganda by the media - written down, it's only data - heard live, a different result.

.

[cyborg]

I think it's a bit sad. How would this change a person's life to know that Jefferson was in their family tree?? I like to look back on relatives, but I am alive right now.

[ClearCase_guy]

No one is gonna prove any of this either way.

The Truth is not known.
The Truth cannot be known.

It makes no sense for anyone to profit from this, since it is an unknown. Now, ask yourself: are fans of Thomas Jefferson talking about Sally Hammings all the time? Are they saying Jefferson was a GOD! Why? Because he never fathered a child with this woman! Isn't that great?!

Wouldn't that be a silly claim? In no way can this alleged incident be used to boost Jefferson's reputation. As why should it? There's no proof, so fans of Jefferson have no reason to say much of anything on the topic.

BUT ... people who want to claim "everybody does it" have a real reason to smear him with an unsubstantiated "fact". Oh, sure, we don't know for sure, ... but, you know, everybody does it ... and one of the Jefferson men did it ... and, you know, it could have been Tom ... so, that's almost like proving that he was a hound-dog, right? So, I guess we can ignore all the verified sex scandals too ... because, you know ... even Thomas Jefferson did it.

In short: this is useful as a smear on a great American. The story can serve no other purpose. We don't have to declare Thomas Jefferson a saint, but we should say that this is an unfounded, unsubstantiated smear job. It has no use as anything else.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

Here’s what is known: Thomas Jefferson owned a slave named Sally Hemings.

How much more likely then, that Jefferson fathered one of her children. If she lived on his property, it would have been very peculiar for other members of Jefferson's family to pay a visit to his slave. Can you just see them sneaking around back, on an ostensible visit to Jefferson - it just isn't plausible. And how would such a relationship with one of his relatives have been initiated? It just makes more sense that a relationship would have developed between Jefferson and his slave - though, with him being in a position of authority, how much of a relationship would that have been?

[Jim Cane]

Jesse Jackson is Richard Milhouse Nixon's illegitimate
love child. Micheal Jackson, too!

[elbucko]

BTW, why is my posting comment opening up in a new window?

Beats me! The only thing I know how to do with computers is break them.

[cyborg]

LOL I think the new fangled pager thing popped up and I didn't realize it. Oh well.

[John Robertson]

It matters. The truth always matters. Something is or it isn't, and dissemblers and liars shouldn't be given a pass on manipulating a COUNTRY! The vast majority of Americans now think Thomas Jefferson indeed fathered kids with Sally Hemmings, and there is not yet conclusive proof of that. For those who would make political hay out of such a "fact," that national delusion is very useful. It matters.

[cyborg]

LOL please and Jackson loves to insert himself into situations while his son is squirreling away babies. Like father, like son.

[Publius]

A long time ago I posted Thomas Jefferson: Radical and Racist, a Conor Cruise O'Brien article that appeared in the Atlantic back in 1996. (O'Brien argued that Jefferson should be drummed out of the roll of the Founding Fathers.)

The article produced some fine, reasoned debate on FR, but unfortunately I can't find that original thread.

The Atlantic article is not bad, but it's a bit strident.

[SpringheelJack]

Didn't Benjamin Franklin have a child in illegitimacy too?

Yep --- the governor of New Jersey. William, though, didn't agree with his dad's politics, and chose to stay loyal to the King. The bastard....

[Puppage]

How would this change a person's life

That's a GREAT question. Monetarily speaking, I doubt it would do much of anything, but I think that if one leads an honest life then this would just add to it. Certainly would be quite the conversation starter, don't ya think?

[tcuoohjohn]

well...I think on the basis of the preponderance of the evidence ( The historical standard) it is fairly clear that Jefferson fathered one of more children by Sally Hemmings.

I am sure that there are last ditchers who, for emotional reasons, feel compelled to deny that. I see no slander against Jefferson in that reasonable assertion. He was man of his times and of his class. The phenomenon of interracial progeny in was, if not common, then frequent enough for commentators of the day to note it.

I guess they can find some strained method to question the DNA evidence or come up with a very convoluted and tortured explanation for it. But is you put Occam's Razor to the question it isn't all that complex.

If fully expect somebody to come up with an odd explanation of the Strom Thurmond issue by claiming that it wasn't Strom but his long dead third cousin from Aiken who happened to visit the family within the month that Miss Butler was impregnated in 1925 etc...etc.

[cyborg]

Thanks for the verify. It does not change the fact that Franklin was a great man. However, the race politics climate being what it is, I can understand the furor over the paternity of Jefferson. It would not make me think less of Jefferson, or stop buying his shirts out of the J.Peterman catalog for that matter.

[CatoRenasci]

You have obviously not read very much about the Jefferson household or the Hemmings Controversy. There were always lots of people around, including other Jefferson male family members, coming and going more or less as they pleased, staying for week to month long visits. As Malone documents, at least one of them (I just can't remember whether it was Brother Randolph or one of the nephews) had a nortorious reputation as sleeping with many of the slave women, and this individual was also known to be around Monticello at the approximate times most of Hemmings' children were likely conceived. This has all been known for 50 years and more, some of it for more than 100 years, if anyone cared to look in the scholarly biographies. Any white male, especially the relative of a slave owner, and even more especially the relative of a slave owner when the master was away, could easily exercise authority over a female slave, and could probably have his way with her. The Jefferson male with the reputation as a rake-hell was known to be charming and would carouse with the slave women, plying them with liquor.

All this is much more plausible than the idea that a 60+ year old man (when that was quite old) was busy shagging the help.

[petitfour]

I'm not convinced either way on this. I lean more toward believing that Jefferson did father Hemings children. However, that doesn't make it so. My favorite professor was on the Blue Ribbon Commission, and he has never liked Jefferson. He read all the evidence that the Commission had and, despite his disdain for Jefferson, concluded that Jefferson could not have fathered the Hemings children. He believed Jefferson's migraines, among other things, prohibited him from sexual relations at the time of conception for at least the youngest of Hemings' children.

If Jefferson wasn't intimate with his slave, then who were his women friends? There is a film at Monticello (the welcome center or museum or whatever it is) that mentions Jefferson having an affair with some married British female while he was a diplomat in Paris. I do not think Jefferson was celibate all those years after that.

Another thing, didn't President Bush welcome the Jefferson and Hemings descendants to the White House right around the time that the Commission's report came out?

[cyborg]

http://www.monticello.org/plantation/hemingscontro/hemings_resource.html

This is from the official society that runs the Jefferson place. It's where I used to get shirts and seeds from his garden. This where I get a lot of my Sally info from.