JEFFERSON NOTES Jefferson Notes is a publication of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society Richard Dixon Editor jeffersonnotes@earthlink.net Spring 2009 No. 6
PATERNITY REBUFFED
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homas Jefferson was not immune to fractured friendships. There was Patrick Henry, Henry Lee, John Adams, even George Washington. But one friend he made in the early days of the new
Republic and kept to the end of his life was James Madison. They first met in 1776 at the Second Virginia Convention in Williamsburg and later Madison served on the Virginia Council of State when Jefferson was governor. Madison lived just a day’s ride from Monticello in his ancestral home Montpelier. He served as Secretary of State during Jefferson’s two terms as president and succeeded Jefferson to the presidency. Statute for Religious Freedom. Jefferson submitted it in 1779 while he was governor, but it was not adopted. In 1784, a powerful coalition, which included John Marshall, Patrick Henry, and Edmund Randolph, submitted a bill to make Christianity the official religion of Virginia. All Christian churches would be supported by tax revenues. Jefferson was away as Minister to France, but Madison, who had supported Jefferson’s bill in 1779, led the defeat of this assessment. With momentum in his favor, he placed Jefferson's bill back before the General Assembly and it passed. Although there were “some mutilations in the preamble,” Jefferson included the authorship of the Statute for Religious Freedom as one of his greatest achievements. Madison, the loyal friend and political ally, never intruded his great contribution on the credit due Jefferson. Constitution. Madison wrote to Jefferson in France that the “objects of union” could not be reached by a confederation of states. It was necessary for the people to empower both the states and a national government. Madison termed this form a republic, because it derives “all of its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people.” After its adoption, Jefferson wrote that the Constitution was “good, but not perfect,” and that he hoped that the states “annex to it a Bill of Rights...” Madison had resisted a Bill of Rights, but he realized that the widespread demand for the guaranty of certain rights could result in a new Constitutional Convention. He guided the Congress to adopt ten amendments, which became the Bill of Rights and Madison became known as the “father of the ConstiCont’d on page 5 tution.”
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vernight, Thomas Jefferson became a slave father. Nature magazine misrepresented DNA tests in a sensational headline. Monticello followed In Defense of Thomas Jefferson this up William G. Hyland Jr. with a St. Martin’s Press (2009) poorly conceived “report” on the paternity claim. It all fit the academic community’s mood and it provided intriguing material for the media. William G. Hyland Jr. in his In Defense of Thomas Jefferson takes up the task of putting the story back together. Hyland starts with the Callender articles in 1802 that first raised the allegation that Thomas Jefferson had children by his slave Sally Hemings. He retraces what little is known of Hemings from her stay with Jefferson in Paris to her return and subsequent years at Monticello. There is little to connect her to Jefferson except rumor. No evidence from her years at Monticello support a physical relationship. The DNA test results showed that someone with the same y haplotype as Jefferson’s uncle was an ancestor of Sally Hemings’ youngest son. Earlier research by Pearl Graham indicated Jefferson was present at Monticello during each of Sally Hemings’ conceptions. Based on a matrix of Jefferson’s time at Cont’d on page 5
THE “WHAT IF” STORY OF TOM AND SALLY
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n her first book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, Annette Gordon-Reed, a lawyer, offered a legalistic analysis of the paternity evidence. Her theme was that valid evidence indicating paternity had been ignored by historians, particularly slave oral history and the newspaper interview of Madison Hemings. In spite of her theme that these family legends should be accepted as reliable history, she never quite asserts that the paternity of Jefferson’s slave children could be proved as historical fact.
In a unique leap, Gordon-Reed now offers a second book, The Hemingses of Monticello, in which The Hemingses of Monticello she assumes that paternity is an historical Annette Gordon-Reed fact. Relying heavily on Free Some Day, a prodW.W. Norton & Co. (2008) uct of traditional research into the daily lives of the Monticello slaves, by Lucinda Stanton, Gordon-Reed takes it further. She now imagines what the emotions, thoughts and aspirations of the Monticello community would have been during the thirty-year relationship of Jefferson and Sally Hemings. This is a risky venture, and she fails to overcome two challenges. The first is that she proceeds on the assumption of the Jefferson paternity so she must ignore the historical facts which are contrary to that assumption. This would be acceptable for historical fiction, but she claims her book is nonfiction. The fact that it won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize as a nonfiction presentation will not do much to satisfy the reader. The second challenge is the paucity of information about Sally Hemings and the exact nature of any intimate relationship within the Jefferson family. Her historical character must be invented. As it turns out, she has the intelligence, resourcefulness and logical command expected from one with a Dartmouth education and a Harvard law degree. All of the musings about what Sally felt or thought might have validity if we knew who she really was. However, we have here a novelistic approach that leaves the reader lost between historical truth (what we know did happen) and fiction (what Gordon-Reed imagines might have happened). In order for the reader to be drawn to the inevitable conclusion that Jefferson was the father of the Hemings’ children, there must be no other plausible alternative to the events Gordon-Reed offers as proof. Here is a small example among the multitude that abound. Upon their return from Paris, Martha marries, too quickly concludes the author, and she opines this is because Martha does not want to go to Monticello where Sally is now her father’s mistress. There is no reason for the reader to accept the premise that the marriage occurs too quickly, but even so, there surely could be reasons for the marriage other than the one imagined by GordonReed. An unsolved hurdle for the paternity believers is how this affair continued undetected for so many years and so many pregnancies. Gordon -Reed solves this by assuming everyone knew. The test that must be applied to this kind of assumption is the reaction of those around Jefferson. Did they act in a manner that would only be consistent with knowledge of the affair? Or was their conduct just as consistent with the lack of knowledge? Stripped of “almost certainly,” “might have been,” and “one imagines,” Gordon-Reed is mostly left with “what if” to support her hypothesis. Jefferson dies at the end of this volume, but Gordon-Reed promises a second book about the Hemings. With Tom and Sally gone from the scene, it is unlikely readers will be interested in what happens next. Jefferson Notes page 2
The Madison Hemings interview was published in the Pike County (Ohio) Republican on March 13, 1873, almost fifty years after Hemings left Monticello. This interview is important to the paternity believers because it is the only declaration by a Jefferson relative, acquaintance, or slave, that Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings. We will continue in Jefferson Notes to examine it.
The Madison Hemings interview is the source of the “treaty legend.” According to Hemings, when Jefferson prepared to leave France, he intended to bring Sally Hemings back with him to Virginia, “but she demurred.” To induce her, Jefferson promised her “extraordinary privileges, and made a solemn pledge that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one years.” This “treaty” took place 15 years before Hemings birth, but he does not reveal the source of this information. There is no record that anyone before Madison raised this unusual arrangement with his mother. Even given the benefit of hindsight, Hemings does not relate any of the “extraordinary privileges” that his mother received. In fact, all accounts indicate she was treated the same as the other house slaves. Madison describes her as “well used,” but there is no indication that her daily condition, material possessions, or duties at Monticello, involved any “extraordinary privileges.” It is correct that all her children were freed, but Madison admitted that it did not come automatically at 21. The older son Beverly was 24 when he was listed on the Monticello records as a “runaway.” Madison reached the age of 21 years before Jefferson’s death, but was later freed under his will. Sally Hemings was not mentioned in Jefferson’s will and continued in slavery until freed several years later by Jefferson’s daughter.
THE JEFFERSON IMAGE THOMAS THE JEFFERSON WORLD OF*THOMAS ARCHITECT JEFFERSON AND BUILDER PART TWO OF TWO PARTS
The World of Thomas Jefferson is continued from the previous issue of Jefferson Notes
1796 John Adams is elected president. Thomas Jefferson becomes President of the Senate by virtue of his election to the vice presidency. As the presiding officer, he desires to follow a “known system of rules,” so prepares for his own guidance a manual of parliamentary law, following the practice of the English Parliament. 1797 The United States is divided over the war between France and England. In order to suppress the supporters of France, Federalists in Congress pass the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson believes the Acts violate the guarantees of speech and press in the First Amendment. His resolutions against the acts are adopted by the Kentucky legislature and James Madison writes similar ones for Virginia. 1799 The U. S. capital is moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. under an agreement with Alexander Hamilton that James Madison and Jefferson will support the U.S assumption of the war debts of the states. Jefferson later feels he was deceived by Hamilton. On December 14, 1799, George Washington dies at Mt. Vernon. 1800 Jefferson calls his election to the presidency the Revolution of 1800. It is the first election to be decided by the House of Representatives when Jefferson is tied with Aaron Burr in the Electoral College. Jefferson's inauguration day begins a Virginia “dynasty” that will last for twenty-five years through the succeeding presidencies of James Madison and James Monroe. On the day he takes his oath of office, he looks into the face of a new Chief Justice John Marshall, who will establish the legal basis for the supremacy of the central government over the sovereignty of the states in the American federal system of government. In1804, the 12th amendment will be added to the Constitution to provide for separate ballots for the president and vicepresident. 1801 When the Pasha of Tripoli cuts down the United States flag - a ceremonial declaration of warhe intends to frighten the young nation, but the American reaction is, “Millions for defense- not one cent for tribute.” Jefferson sends the Navy and the Marines to the shores of Tripoli.
1802 Jefferson plans an expedition to cross the Louisiana Territory and map the route to the Pacific coast. This “voyage of discovery” will gather data of plant life, animals and the soil, examine the possibilities of the fur trade in the inland waterways and establish relations with the Indians. Led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, this bold venture will take twenty-seven months. They map the course of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, reach the Pacific ocean and dash all hope there is a “northwest passage” to China. 1803 A slave uprising in 1791 had driven the French from Saint-Domingue. Napoleon wants it back as a base for an invasion of New Orleans and the development of the Louisiana Territory. In a futile effort to reestablish French rule in SaintDomingue, Napoleon loses three armies. When he is approached by Robert Livingston and James Monroe to sell the Port of New Orleans, Napoleon is weary of the cost and loss of men. He offers to sell the entire Louisiana territory, 828,000 square miles, greater than the size of the original thirteen colonies. In Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court for the first time declares a law unconstitutional and establishes the principle of judicial review. 1804 Napoleon declares himself emperor of France. In his coronation at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, he changes the symbolic crowning by the pope when he takes the crown and places it on his own head. 1806 Jefferson begins construction of Poplar Forest. His ownership of a second house was not well known, so Poplar Forest becomes a refuge from the endless stream of visitors to Monticello. 1807 The European continent is again aflame with the Napoleonic wars and England begins to seize American ships carrying French cargo. Sailors who cannot prove American citizenship are taken by the British. Napoleon declares that all ships trading with the British will be stopped. Caught in the vise, Jefferson convinces Congress to pass the Embargo Acts prohibiting foreign goods from entering American ports or American goods from leaving. The seaport towns of the east coast and the Great Lakes violently oppose the embargo because of the impact
Jefferson Notes page 3
Cont’d on page 4
on their economies. Jefferson is soon faced with widespread opposition and Congress is forced to lift the embargo. 1808 James Madison is elected president. 1810 Napoleon invades Spain and its colonial empire collapses. Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela. Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras all proclaim independence. 1811 Parliament installs the Prince of Wales as Prince Regent to rule because of the mental illness of his father, George III. Born three years before Jefferson, George III ascended to the throne in 1760 amid the instability of the Seven Years War. Jefferson would become his principal antagonist against colonial rule in A Summary View of the Rights of British America and in the Declaration of Independence. 1812 As England and France war, America is caught between them. Its ships are attacked by both sides and the British navy continues to take American seamen, violate U. S. territorial waters and blockade its ports. Spurred on by the “War Hawks” in Congress from the west and south, and sensing the opportunity to take Canada, the United States declares war on June 18, 1812, on the most powerful nation in the world. 1814 Washington is a deserted city and British troops burn the Capitol, the White House and most of the government buildings before returning to their ships the next night. A timely storm helps put out the flames and prevents greater destruction. It is not so easy for the British in Baltimore. American regular troops and militia put up a stout defense. Fort McHenry withstands the naval bombardment and by “the dawn's early light” Francis Scott Key pens the words to the Star Spangled Banner. Although peace negotiators agree to end the war, this news does not reach the British expedition which finds Andrew Jackson waiting at New Orleans. One-third of the British force falls to the withering American fire. Shocked at their losses, the British leave the field and sail away, a triumphant end for the young United States. 1815 To counter revolution sweeping through the colonial empires, Austria, Russia and Prussia form the Holy Alliance.
the site as the new University of Virginia. Jefferson determines the disciplines to be taught, devises the curriculum, and designs and supervises the building of an “academical village” with its unique ranges, and at the center a magnificent Rotunda. 1819 Several years of falling land prices and bank failures continue. Inflation, unemployment and widespread business collapse combine to create the “Panic of 1819.” Fortunes based on an agrarian economy, such as those of Jefferson and Monroe, disappear. 1820 Admission of Missouri to the union is blocked by Northern opponents of slavery. Slavery had existed here as part of the Louisiana Territory before it was acquired by the United States. The Missouri Compromise allows admission of Missouri and the free state of Maine. It also provides that future states carved from the rest of the Louisiana territory north of 36º 31' N will be free. Jefferson believes increasing opposition to slavery is a “fire bell in the night” and to him “the knell of the union.” 1823 The Holy Alliance is a threat to restore the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Russia contests the claim of the United States to its Pacific northwest. In the president's annual message, James Monroe reaffirms the policy established by George Washington that the United States will not interfere in European affairs. But the “American continents,” he declares, are not “subjects for future colonization” by the European powers. Monroe warns that any attempt to extend a European political system to the western hemisphere was dangerous to the “peace and safety” of the United States. Thomas Jefferson terms the issue “momentous.” 1824 The Marquis de Lafayette visits America to great acclaim and is the first foreigner to address both houses of Congress. His grand tour includes all 25 states and in Charlottesville he dines with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. When he dies in 1834, dirt from Bunker Hill is spread over his grave in the Picpus cemetery in Paris. 1825 John Quincy Adams is elected president and the new Democratic and Whig parties emerge.
1816 The Federalist party disappears. Jeffersonian Republicans nominate James Monroe for president and he wins all but three states.
1826 Jefferson dies at Monticello on July 4, 1826. He is buried there beneath an obelisk which reads:
1817 The General Assembly again rejects Jefferson’s plan for public education but does agree to charter Central College in Charlottesville. It then designates
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.
Jefferson Notes page 4
JEFFERSON AND MADISON Cont’d from page 1
PATERNITY REFUTED Cont’d from page 1
Location of the Capitol. Alexander Hamilton urged a plan to restore public credit by assumption of all the debt from the Revolutionary War. Madison opposed this because the original holders of the debt bonds had sold them to speculators who would receive the benefit of the government buyout. Hamilton also wanted to assume the debts of the states, which Madison opposed because Virginia and several southern states had paid most of its debt and did not want to be responsible for the debt of the other states. Congress accepted Hamilton’s plan to assume the public debt. At this point, Jefferson brought Madison and Hamilton together in the famous “dinner party compromise.” The southern states wanted the new capital city near the center of the country. Jefferson and Madison agreed to allow Hamilton’s plan to proceed, and in return, Hamilton delivered enough votes to move the capital to a site on the Potomac River, which became Washington, D.C.
Monticello by genealogist Cyndi Burton, Hyland demonstrates that the conception theory is flawed.
Alien and Sedition Acts. The French Revolution brought on the Wars of the Coalitions in Europe. Federalists tended to favor England, and to suppress the supporters of France, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. The most controversial was the Sedition Act, which made it a crime to write or publish “false, scandalous, or malicious” allegations against the President, Congress or the government. These four statutes gave President John Adams the power to deport or jail aliens “dangerous to the peace and safety” of the United States.” Jefferson believed the Sedition Act violated the guarantees of speech and press in the First Amendment. His resolutions against the acts were adopted by the Kentucky legislature and James Madison wrote similar ones for Virginia. This episode marked a major shift in public support for the emerging Jeffersonian republicans. University of Virginia. James Madison and James Monroe were both on the board of the new University of Virginia to be constructed in Charlottesville. It was the great endeavor of Jefferson’s last years to build a university, original both in its physical plant and its concept of learning. Before his death, he committed the care of the University to Madison, and recalled “the friendship which has subsisted between us, now half a century.” After Jefferson's death, Madison became Rector of the University, the last of the three Virginia presidents who had laid its cornerstone in 1817. He guided the University for eight years, and provided financial help he could ill afford, but always gave credit to Jefferson as the creator of the University that “bears the stamp of his genius, and will be a noble monument of his fame.”
Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello, in Charlottesville, and James Madison’s home, Montpelier, in Orange, are about thirty minutes distant and may be vis ited in a single day.
Visit www.TJHeritage.org the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society web site for other articles on Thomas Jefferson and discussions on the Hemings paternity claim and exactly what the DNA tests proved. Jefferson Notes page 5
He goes on to show that the rush to judgment by Monticello overwhelmed the academic community and the media. Monticello insisted, without evidence, that Jefferson was the father of all the Hemings children. Even though the DNA results were limited to the descendants of one child, the Monticello “one father theory” received widespread acceptance. Hyland is a trial the Monticello “one lawyer, and he puts together a father theory” redefense that ceived widespread first identifies acceptance the elements of the broken story, then systematically demonstrates how the evidence must be viewed. He identifies the writers who are most responsible for continuing on the wrong path blazed by Monticello. His thesis is strongly backed by a year-long study by a panel of 13 prominent historians and scholars. His Defense finds Jefferson “an innocent man.”
CAPITOL BIRTHDAY CEREMONY
Me
mbers of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society celebrated Jefferson’s birthday on April 13, 2009 at the Virginia Capitol, which he designed. They were there for the reading by Senator John Watkins of a Joint Resolution of the General Assembly, which resolved as follows: Senator John Watkins of Virginia’s 10th District presents the Joint Resolution to Ken Wallenborn, President of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society.
RESOLVED by the Senate, the House of Delegates concurPhoto courtesy Harold Barger ring, That the General Assembly hereby commemorate, on the occasion of the 265th anniversary of his birth, the life of Thomas Jefferson, a remarkable visionary who championed the principles of freedom Cont’d on page 6
THOMAS JEFFERSON HERITAGE SOCIETY 12106 BEAVER CREEK ROAD CLIFTON, VIRGINIA 22030
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We welcome your support for the work of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society. Please make donations to TJHS and forward to Box 4482, Charlottesville, VA 22905 Little Mountain $ 25.00 Rotunda 100.00 Memorial 250.00
All contributors will receive a copy of The Jefferson-Hemings Myth: An American Travesty. Rotunda and Memorial contributors will also receive Jefferson Vindicated. CAPITOL BIRTHDAY CEREMONY Cont’d from page 5
WHERE IS THIS MONUMENT?
The plaque reads: RELIGIOUS LIBERTY - FROM A MEETING IN ???? JANUARY 13-17, 1777 OF A COM-
and democracy that have made the United States the greatest nation in the world; and, be it RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the Senate prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society as an expression of the General Assembly’s admiration for the organization’s many efforts to promote patriotism and educate citizens about the achievements of one of our nation’s greatest founding fathers. There were talks by Bruce Jamerson, Clerk of the House of Delegates, on the history of the Capitol building and its renovation; by Tom Camden, Director of Special Collections at the Library of Virginia, describing the portraits and copy of the Declaration of Independence in the Jefferson Room; and by Harrison R. Tyler, grandson of President John Tyler, recalling his grandfather's eulogy of Thomas Jefferson in 1826.
BECOME A SPONSOR OF JEFFERSON NOTES The sponsor for this Spring 2009 issue is Bahman Batmanghelidj, a long time admirer and scholar of Jefferson’s life and philosophy. Jefferson Notes is furnished free twice yearly. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor email JeffersonNotes@earthlink.net.
MITTEE OF REVISORS APPOINTED BY THE GRAND ASSEMBLY OF GINIA, COMPOSED OF THOMAS
VIRJEF-
FERSON, GEORGE MASON, EDMUND PENDLETON, GEORGE WYTHE AND THOMAS LUDWELL LEE TO 'SETTLE THE PLAN OF OPERATION AND TO DISTRIBUTE THE WORK' -EVOLVED THE STATUTE OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AUTHORED BY THOMAS JEFFERSON. IN THIS DOCUMENT THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA MADE PROBABLY ITS GREATEST CONTRIBUTION TO GOVERNMENT RECOGNITION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.
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Jefferson Notes page 6