The Jefferson Lies

by David Barton

  Deconstruction of American heroes, values, and institutions—which especially occurs in today’s classrooms—is the reason most Americans can recite more of what’s wrong with our nation than what’s right. They can identify every wart that has ever appeared on the face of America over the past four centuries, but not what has made America the envy of every people in the world—every people, that is, except Americans.

  Recall the students in the beginning of this chapter who believed all the Founders in the painting were proslavery. When I ask those same students to point out in the painting notable religious signers such as Robert Treat Paine, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Rush, Francis Hopkinson, John Witherspoon, Lyman Hall, Charles Carroll, or others, they look at me quizzically and say they’ve never heard those names before. They can always point out only Jefferson and Franklin—the two least religious among the Founders—but not the others. Students are taught the exception rather than the rule. (Incidentally, even the religious views of Franklin and Jefferson are frequently inaccurately portrayed in today’s academic settings.)

  Under Deconstructionism students are similarly taught about the “intolerant” Christian Puritans who conducted the infamous witch trials. And while twenty-seven individuals died in the Massachusetts witch trials,34 almost universally ignored is the fact that witch trials were occurring across the world at that time; in Europe, 500,000 were put to death,35 including 30,000 in England, 75,000 in France, and 100,000 in Germany.36 Additionally, the American witch trials lasted eighteen months, but the European trials lasted years.37

  Furthermore, the Massachusetts witch trials were brought to a close when Christian leaders such as the Reverend John Wise, the Reverend Increase Mather, and Thomas Brattle challenged the trials because the Biblical rules of evidence and due process had not been followed in the courts, thus convincing civil leaders and the governor to end those trials.38 Twenty-seven deaths in America but 500,000 in Europe? Why emphasize the twenty-seven but ignore the 500,000? The answer is “Deconstructionism”—presenting a negative portrayal of American faith and values.

  Rarely do students hear that it was these “despised” Puritans who instituted America’s first elective forms of government, originated the practice of written constitutions,39 constructed the first bills of rights to protect individual liberties,40 instituted the free market economic system,41 or began America’s system of common, or public, schools.42

  In short, Deconstructionists happily point out everything that can possibly be portrayed as a flaw—even if they have to distort information to do so—but they remain conspicuously silent about the multitude of reasons to be proud of America and its many successes and heroes. They have led Americans toward knowing everything that “lays low” American traditions, values, and heroes but virtually nothing that honors or affirms them.

  Poststructuralism

  The second historical device for attacking and pulling down what is traditionally honored is called Poststructuralism. Poststructuralism is marked “by a rejection of totalizing, essentialist, foundationalist concepts” such as the reality of truth or “the will of God.”43 Poststructuralism discards absolutes and is “a-historical” (that is, non- or anti-historical),44 believing that nothing transcendent can be learned from history. Instead, meaning must be constructed by each individual for him- or herself, and historical meanings may shift and change based on an individual’s personal views.45 Poststructuralism is especially evident in the judiciary, where judges often interpret and ascertain the meaning of the Constitution for themselves, redefining even the simplest words with new and previously unknown meanings that the judge has supposedly discovered for him- or herself. Poststructuralism also encourages citizens to “view themselves as members of their interest group first, with the concerns of their nation and the wider community coming second, thus encouraging individual anarchy against traditional national unifying values.”46 In the past, America was characterized by the Latin phrase on the Great Seal of the United States: E Pluribus Unum, meaning “out of many, one.” This acknowledges that although there was much diversity in America, there was a common unity that overcame all differences. But Poststructuralism reverses that emphasis to become E Unum Pluribus—that is, “out of one, many,” dividing the nation into separate groups and components with no unifying commonality between them. In short, Poststructuralism ignores traditional national unifying structures, values, heroes, and institutions and instead substitutes personally constructed ones.

  American Exceptionalism

  Regrettably, the greatest casualty of the joint influence of Deconstructionism and Poststructuralism is American Exceptionalism—the belief that America is blessed and enjoys unprecedented stability, prosperity, and liberty as a result of the institutions and policies produced by unique ideas such as God-given inalienable rights, individualism, limited government, full republicanism, and an educated and virtuous citizenry.

  Americans are blessed. America is an exceptional nation. That exceptionalism encompasses her great diversity of race, ethnicity, and religion, and it has benefited every American. But now, following several decades of Deconstruction and Poststructural indoctrination in education and politics, American Exceptionalism is no longer recognized, understood, or venerated. To the contrary, many American political officials now feel compelled to apologize to the world for America; they are conscious of our flaws but seem ignorantly oblivious to our matchless benefits and opportunities.

  The two-headed monster of Deconstructionism and Poststructuralism allows nothing respected to stand untainted—including Thomas Jefferson. Hence, Americans can readily point out what they have been told are his multitude of unpardonable sins but can list nearly none of his invaluable and timeless contributions that changed the face of America, and even the world.

  Modernism

  A third common attack device is Modernism, which examines historical events and persons as if they occurred and lived today rather than in the past. It severs history from its context and setting, misrepresenting historical beliefs and events.

  For example, Modernists would look at what American Methodists believe today, recognize that they are among the most socially liberal of Christian denominations, and then declare that John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield were also socially liberal because they founded Methodism. Yet the Wesleys and Whitefield were characterized by numerous beliefs and practices that are anathema to most Methodist congregations today, including the overtly evangelical nature of the denomination at its founding, its outdoor camp meetings and revivals, and its tendency for demonstrative behavior that observers in that day described as emotionalism and fanaticism—behavior that would make many Methodists today extremely uncomfortable. In fact, it is highly unlikely that the Wesleys or Whitefield would ever be invited into the pulpits of modern Methodist churches. Modernists assume that everything is static—that as it is today, so it was then, but to accurately portray history, each group or individual must be measured not by today’s modes of thinking, customs, and usage but rather by the context of their own times.

  This is not to say that there is no absolute truth or that historical eras, movements, and individuals should not be judged by the immutable standards of right and wrong that transcend all generations—the standards that Jefferson and the Founding Fathers described in the Declaration of Independence. Indeed, all must be judged by immutable objective standards, as “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” But just because those in previous generations often saw through a glass darkly does not mean they can be dismissed out of hand. Yet this is invariably what occurs when history is presented through the filter of Modernism. Too often today, Jefferson’s life is wrongly judged and critiqued as if he were living now rather than two centuries ago—a practice that produces many flawed conclusions.

  Minimalism

  The fourth modern device used today is Minimalism, which is an unreasonable insistence on oversimplification—on reducing everything to monolithic causes and l
inear effects. Minimalism is easily recognizable in political campaign rhetoric: candidates take behemoth problems facing the nation—complicated difficulties that often have been decades in the making—and reduce them to one-line platitudes and campaign slogans. Minimalism is also apparent in the modern portrayal of history.

  Our modern culture insists on easy answers, but the life of Jefferson does not accommodate that demand. He was an extremely complicated individual, not a man to be flippantly stereotyped or compartmentalized. In fact, he was probably much more complex than most other historic individuals from the same era. But many who write about him today try to conform him to a preshaped, preconceived, simplistic mold into which he does not fit. The image of Thomas Jefferson as presented by one modern writer will therefore often completely contradict the image presented by another, because each writer attempted to squeeze Jefferson into his or her own Minimalistic perception.

  Minimalism is especially utilized by single-issue groups seeking to keep their issue at the forefront of public thinking—an especially difficult task in a culture already overloaded with single-issue organizations. Because such movements often lack widespread public support, they frequently attempt to bolster their standing by attaching someone of much broader public appeal to their narrow agenda, making that person appear to prove their objectives. Consequently, Minimalists portray Jefferson only as a racist, atheist, secularist, or whatever else they believe will help their agenda.

  Academic Collectivism

  The fifth and final device that undermines historical accuracy is Academic Collectivism, whereby writers and scholars quote each other and those from their peer group rather than consult original sources. This destructive and harmful tendency now dominates the modern academic world, with a heavy reliance on peer review as the almost exclusive standard for historical truth.

  An excellent, if chilling example of this historical malpractice is evdent in a book called The Godless Constitution. In that work, Cornell professors Isaac Kramnick and Laurence Moore assert that the Founding Fathers were a group of atheists, agnostics, and deists who deliberately set out to create a secular government.47 This text has become a staple in many universities across the country; law reviews, courts, and other professors now cite this work as an authoritative source to “prove” the Founding Fathers’ lack of religious belief.48 Strikingly, however, at the end of the book, where footnotes customarily appear, the professors candidly acknowledge that “we have dispensed with the usual scholarly apparatus of footnotes.”49

  What a startling admission by two so-called academics with PhDs! They make sweeping and forceful claims about a supposed lack of faith among the Founding Fathers, and their peers in academia herald this book as a great scholarly achievement. But there is not a single academic citation in the book to any original source or primary document. Not even a student at a community junior college would be permitted to submit a research paper with the same lack of primary source documentation, but somehow it is acceptable for professors at a noted academic institution to do so in a nationally published book.

  This type of “peer review” is incestuous, with one scholar quoting another, each recirculating the other’s views, but with none of them consulting sources or ideas outside his or her own academic gene pool. The presence of a PhD after one’s name today somehow suggests academic infallibility—but this view must change if truth, accuracy, and objectivity are ever again to govern the presentation of history and historical figures. Primary source documents and historical evidence are the proper standard for historical truth, not professors’ opinions.

  In the following chapters, we will embark on a search for historical truth. We will attempt to reclaim many of the puzzle pieces of the image of Thomas Jefferson that have been discarded and lost in the twentieth century. Specifically, we will delve into seven contemporary claims about Jefferson’s faith and morals, answering these questions:

  • Did Thomas Jefferson really have a child (or children) by his young slave girl, Sally Hemings?

  • Did Jefferson found a secular university as a reflection of his own allegedly secular lifestyle and beliefs?

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

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

  • Did Jefferson, in his pursuit of separation of church and state, advocate secularizing the public square and the expulsion of faith and religious expressions from the public arena?

  • Did Jefferson hate the clergy?

  • Did Jefferson repudiate religion? Was he an atheist, deist, or secularist, or was he a Christian?

  Let’s examine Jefferson’s own words and the eye-witness testimony of those who knew him best on each of these questions.

  LIE #1

  Thomas Jefferson Fathered Sally

  Hemings’ Children

  In 1998 the journal Science released the results of a DNA inquiry into whether Jefferson had fathered any children through his slave Sally Hemings, specifically her first child, Thomas, or her fifth child, Eston.1 In conjunction with the announcement, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Professor Joseph Ellis wrote an accompanying article in the journal Nature declaring that the question was now settled—that DNA testing had conclusively proved that Thomas Jefferson had indeed fathered a Hemings child, thus scientifically affirming a two-centuries-old rumor.2

  That 1998 announcement concerning early American history was actually relevant to events occurring at the time, for it came at the commencement of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings for lying under oath to a grand jury about his sexual activities with a young intern inside the Oval Office. News reports immediately pounced on the fortuitous DNA announcement, arguing that if a man as great as Thomas Jefferson had engaged in sexual trysts, then President Clinton should not face questions about his sexual misbehavior. After all, such conduct had not diminished the stature of Jefferson, they argued, so it should not be allowed to weaken that of Clinton.

  Professor Ellis agreed, candidly admitting, “President William Jefferson Clinton also has a vested interest in this [DNA] revelation.”3 Significantly, just weeks before Ellis’ bombshell announcement about Jefferson, he had added his signature as a cosigner of an October 1998 ad in the New York Times opposing the impeachment of Clinton.4 Henry Gee, a staff writer for Nature who also wrote a piece as part of the initial revelation, acknowledged that the DNA report provided much-needed cover for President Clinton:

  The parallels between the story of Jefferson’s sexual indiscretions and the travails of the current President are close. Thomas Jefferson came close to impeachment—but the scandal did not affect his popularity and he won the 1804 Presidential election by a landslide. And if President William Jefferson Clinton has cause to curse the invention of DNA fingerprinting, the latest report shows that it has a long reach indeed—back to the birth of the United States itself.5

  Dr. David Mayer, professor of law and history, was a member of an independent “Scholars Commission” later convened over the Jefferson-Hemings issue. He agreed that the timing of the DNA article had not been by accident:

  Professor Ellis’ accompanying article also noted, quite frankly, “Politically, the Thomas Jefferson verdict is likely to figure in upcoming impeachment hearings on William Jefferson Clinton’s sexual indiscretions, in which DNA testing has also played a role.” In television interviews following release of the article, Professor Ellis elaborated on this theme; and Clinton’s apologists made part of their defense the notion that every President—even Jefferson—had his “sexual indiscretions.”6

  As far as Clinton defenders were concerned (especially his supporters in the media), the announcement of Jefferson’s alleged moral failings was a gift from heaven. The entire nation was bombarded with the Jefferson paternity story for weeks; and the news of his moral failings was burned deeply into the consciousness of Americans. But many groups beyond Cl
inton supporters also welcomed the test results as useful to their particular agendas.

  For example, the Jefferson-Hemings affair became the perfect platform for the feminist movement to discuss the nature of sexual relations. Many in that movement had already asserted that any type of sexual relations between a male and a female constituted rape,7 but this development seemed especially to prove their point.8 It was questioned whether any sex could be consensual if it was between individuals from different stations in life—such as Hemings and Jefferson. Many feminist writers, including Fawn Brodie, Barbara Chase-Riboud, and Annette Gordon-Reed, had even authored books about the older Jefferson and the younger Hemings.9

  Another movement that benefited from the Jefferson-Hemings story included those who wished to keep open the racial wounds of previous generations. They pointed to Jefferson and his sexual exploitation of the slave Hemings as proof of how all African Americans were treated by all white Americans, not only in Jefferson’s day, but also throughout much of the rest of American history.10 The Jefferson announcement rekindled demands for restitutionary policies that would provide preferential treatment and elevation of status and opportunity as repayment for past wrongs committed.

  However, only eight weeks after the initial blockbuster DNA story was issued, it was retracted quietly and without fanfare, with the scientific researcher who had conducted the DNA test announcing that it actually had not proven that Jefferson fathered any children with Hemings.11 But this news exonerating Jefferson did not make the same splash in the national headlines, for it aided no agenda being advanced at that time. Since doing justice to Jefferson’s reputation was not deemed to be a worthy national consideration in and of itself, the retraction story was simply buried or ignored.