Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed about Thomas Jefferson: From Sally Hemmings to His "Deism"

American Thinker ^ | 4/02/2016 | Richard Kirk

[SeekAndFind]

What kind of criticism would prompt a major publisher to withdraw from circulation a New York Times bestseller by a recognized scholar? One would think the objections would have to be weighty and the critics unquestioned experts in the particular field. In the case of "The Jefferson Lies", one would be mistaken to make those assumptions.

In 2012, David Barton's popular analysis of Thomas Jefferson was pulled by the book's publisher, Thomas Nelson, based on what appears to have been an academic putsch designed to protect the now popular view of the third president as a secular deist and hypocritical slave-holding philanderer. This uprising was led by a motley intellectual crew who, for the most part, had little or no expertise in the subject matter at issue.

The re-release of The Jefferson Lies by WND Books begins with an extended preface in which the author discusses the largely picayune objections raised against his original work – primarily by a psychology professor from Grove City College, Warren Throckmorton. These somewhat arcane refutations should have been placed at the end of the work – allowing Barton's clear and convincing evidence to speak first for itself. That evidence primarily concerns "lies" about Jefferson's relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, "lies" about Jefferson's supposed hypocrisy vis-à-vis slavery, "lies" about the ex-president's position concerning the separation of church and state, and "lies" related to Jefferson's religious beliefs.

Barton's most startling revelation concerns the brazenly dishonest claim that DNA evidence proved that Jefferson fathered one of Sally Hemings's children. This blockbuster story in Nature magazine (November 5, 1998) was splashed with gusto all over the national media. The retraction of this "proof" came eight weeks later – with all the impact of an obscure page 16 correction.

[SeekAndFind]

INTRODUCTION FROM AMAZON.COM

The American public was nearly deprived of the opportunity to read this book.

In 2012 popular historian David Barton set out to correct what he saw as the distorted image of a once-beloved Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, in what became a New York Times best-selling book, The Jefferson Lies.

Despite the wildly popular success of the original hardcover edition, or perhaps because of it, a campaign to discredit Barton s scholarship was launched by bloggers and a handful of non-historian academics.

What happened next was shocking virtually unprecedented in modern American publishing history. Under siege from critics, the publisher spiked the book and recalled it from the retail shelves from coast to coast. The Jefferson Lies is thus a history book that made history becoming possibly the first book of its kind to be victimized by the scourge of political correctness.

But more than three years later, it s back as an updated paperback edition in which Barton sets the record straight and takes on the critics who savaged his work.

And that s just part of the story. Why did this book spark so much controversy?

It could only happen in an America that has forgotten its past. Its roots, its purpose, its identity all have become shrouded behind a veil of political correctness bent on twisting the nation's founding, and its Founders, beyond recognition.

The time has come to remember again.

This new paperback edition of The Jefferson Lies re-documents Barton's research and conclusions as sound and his premises true. It tackles seven myths about Thomas Jefferson head-on, and answers pressing questions about this incredible statesman including:

Did Thomas Jefferson really have a child by his young slave girl, Sally Hemings?

Did he write his own Bible, excluding the parts of Christianity with which he disagreed?

Was he a racist who opposed civil rights and equality for black Americans?

Did he, in his pursuit of separation of church and state, advocate the secularizing of public life?

Through Jefferson's own words and the eyewitness testimony of contemporaries, Barton repaints a portrait of the man from Monticello as a visionary, an innovator, a man who revered Jesus, a classical Renaissance man, and a man whose pioneering stand for liberty and God-given inalienable rights fostered a better world for this nation and its posterity. For America, the time to remember these truths is now.

[darkwing104]

One is not allowed to contradict the dogma of the left. Looking forward to reading this.

[mountainlion]

I read the book, well at least to the Footnotes. They got boring. David Barton did an outstanding job as usual.

[miss marmelstein]

Just bought the last copy before it’s pulled, lol! Actually, it’s six bucks on Kindle.

[Bodleian_Girl]

I just don’t have a problem at all with Jefferson being the father of some of those white Hemmings kids.

[SeekAndFind]

The issue is not whether one has a problem with it or not, the issue is — IS IT TRUE?

[centurion316]

I am a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson’s grandfather, making the President my first cousin, six times removed. The man who did the most to debunk the DNA “proof” was a Jefferson genealogist, Herb Barger. He demonstrated that Jefferson could not be the only possible father, but that the most likely suspect was his brother, Randolph. The main villain in the drama was a Black woman historian named Annette Gordon-Reed who was employeed at Monticello. She had an agenda and since it was identical to the agenda of the Left, she became both a hero and an impeccable authority. She was neither, but that didn’t slow down those who wanted to destroy Jefferson’ legacy.

[x]

The issue is not whether one has a problem with it or not, the issue is — IS IT TRUE?

We don't know if it's absolutely true or not, only that it's possible.

Jefferson did try to seduce the wife of a friend, so we can't assume he was above having relations with one of his slaves.

We might also consider the ethics of picking some Jefferson relative or other and putting the blame on him. It may have been tough enough being one of Jefferson's relatives and living in the great man's shadow without being made his fall guy two centuries later.

What's significant about the Barton controversy, though, isn't Sally Hemings, it's Barton's attempt to turn Jefferson into an orthodox Christian believer. While Jefferson may not have been the complete infidel that New England Federalist ministers feared, he was far from orthodox Christianity.

[loveliberty2]

Just one citation we might review:

" If no action is to be deemed virtuous for which malice can imagine a sinister motive, then there never was a virtuous action; no, not even in the life of our Saviour Himself. But He has taught us to judge the tree by its fruit, and to leave motives to Him who can alone see into them." - THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Martin Van Buren, Jun. 29, 1824

[Jack Straw from Wichita]

Exhibit 1

[sasportas]

Jefferson was a Freemason, a Deist, pro-French Revolution, and pro-Illuminati.

As a Deist and a Mason, he believed there was a supreme being, but He wasn’t the one God of the Bible.

He didn’t believe in the miraculous parts of the Bible, especially the virgin birth.

He famously had his own “Bible,” in which he cut out the parts that didn’t fit his deistic and Masonic view.

[Bodleian_Girl]

It seems to me that it is.

[Bodleian_Girl]

I don’t think it’s been debunked at all. Jefferson (Thomas) is the most likely father. After Randolph remarried he was very rarely at Montecello but the white Hemmings children continued.

[centurion316]

The claim was that Thomas Jefferson was proven to be the father. That claim was false. You can believe whatever you chose, but several candidates had the right DNA, the opportunity, and knew the mother.

Tom Hemmings is buried right here in the Leavenworth National Cemetery. Exhumation might provide additional evidence, but this has not been allowed.

[Bigg Red]

mark

[Pelham]

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-thomas-jefferson-created-his-own-bible-5659505/?no-ist

“Thomas Jefferson, together with several of his fellow founding fathers, was influenced by the principles of deism, a construct that envisioned a supreme being as a sort of watchmaker who had created the world but no longer intervened directly in daily life. A product of the Age of Enlightenment, Jefferson was keenly interested in science and the perplexing theological questions it raised. Although the author of the Declaration of Independence was one of the great champions of religious freedom, his belief system was sufficiently out of the mainstream that opponents in the 1800 presidential election labeled him a “howling Atheist.”

“In fact, Jefferson was devoted to the teachings of Jesus Christ. But he didn’t always agree with how they were interpreted by biblical sources, including the writers of the four Gospels, whom he considered to be untrustworthy correspondents. So Jefferson created his own gospel by taking a sharp instrument, perhaps a penknife, to existing copies of the New Testament and pasting up his own account of Christ’s philosophy, distinguishing it from what he called “the corruption of schismatizing followers

[Georgia Girl 2]

Yes its been reported that guests at Jefferson’s dinner parties were embarrassed when served by young light skinned slaves that looked just like him.

[Bodleian_Girl]

No one had the high degree of access that Thomas Jefferson had. And no one else freed those white slates saves for Thomas Jefferson.

His brother only visited on occasion and after he remarried he was rarely at Montecillo. But Sally’s white red headed babies continued to come.

[Bodleian_Girl]

I can still respect him as a founding father while acknowledging that it’s very probable that he fathered those white red-headed babies.

[centurion316]

All true, but paternity has not been proven. That is a very important distinction. You do understand that, don’t you?

You need to rewrite your second sentence, it doesn’t make sense.