by David Barton
For instance, in her book Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, she “reprinted” a letter written in 1858 by Ellen Randolph Coolidge (Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughter) describing the rooms at Monticello. According to Reed, Coolidge had written:
His [Jefferson’s] apartments had no private entrance not perfectly accessible and visible to all the household. No female domestic ever entered his chambers except at hours when he was known not to be in the public gaze.50
So, based on Reed’s quotation of Jefferson’s granddaughter, female domestics such as Hemings entered Jefferson’s apartment only at hours when no one was watching.
Significantly, however, Coolidge’s actual letter had said exactly the opposite:
His [Jefferson’s] apartments had no private entrance not perfectly accessible and visible to all the household. No female domestic ever entered his chambers except at hours when he was known not to be there; and none could have entered without being exposed to the public gaze.51 (emphasis added)
The emphasized portion above is what Gordon-Reed omitted, thus completely reversing its message. Significantly, the granddaughter had actually said that (1) no one could have entered without being seen and that (2) no female staff entered his room unless he was not there. But Reed, in order to bolster her own arguments against Jefferson, twisted and rewrote what Jefferson’s granddaughter had actually said.
Sadly, when someone dismisses Madison Hemings’ claims because of their many provable and obvious inaccuracies, writers such as Gordon-Reed cry “Racism!” and lament that black witnesses from history are automatically given less credence.52 Other writers such as Jan Lewis and Peter Onuf believe that those who do not accept the testimony of Madison Hemings carte blanche are simply racists.53
Such irrational refusals to consider the substantial evidence that contradicts Madison Hemings’ claims indicates that personal predilections and political agendas have been placed above an honest search for the truth. Genuine scholars require verifiable documentation—something completely lacking in the case of Thomas Woodson’s and Madison Hemings’ oral testimonies. In fact, their oral testimonies are factually disprovable, which eliminates the second category of “evidence” used to “prove” Jefferson’s paternity through Hemings.
Category 3: The Charges Published Two Centuries Ago
The earliest printed charges alleging Jefferson’s paternity with Hemings appeared in newspaper articles written from 1801 to 1803 by James T. Callender (1758–1803).
Callender first rose to attention in 1792 in Scotland when he authored The Political Progress of Great Britain. That work, highly critical of the British government, led to his indictment for sedition. After being “oftimes called in court, he did not appear and was pronounced a fugitive and outlaw.”54 Facing prison, Callender and his family of young children fled to America for refuge in 1793, arriving with no means or prospect of support. American patriots, learning of Callender’s plight, sympathetically embraced him as a man suffering British persecution. Many, including Thomas Jefferson, personally provided charitable contributions to help Callender and his children.
In 1796 Callender secured a job writing for a Republican (an Anti-Federalist, pro-Jefferson) newspaper in Philadelphia. Promising “a tornado as no government ever got before,”55 Callender resumed the defamatory writing style that had landed him in trouble in Great Britain, only this time it was against prominent Federalist Americans such as Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and George Washington. By attacking the Federalists, Callender considered himself to be the mouthpiece for Jefferson’s Republican Party and believed he was rendering it a valuable service.
The Northern states tended to be Federalist while the Southern ones tended to be Anti-Federalist (Republican). Callender was therefore in a northern state writing against Federalist statesmen highly regarded in that region. His writings not only raised great ire but were so defamatory as to invite litigation even in that land of free speech. So, fearing legal punishment, Callender fled from Philadelphia to Richmond in 1799.
Arriving there, he took a job with another Republican newspaper where he continued his attacks on the Federalists. Because of his vicious writings, Callender was convicted under the federal Sedition Law in 1800, fined $200 (about $3,000 today), and imprisoned for nine months. Still he did not relent. While in prison he authored two more attack pieces in the same style that had so frequently caused him difficulty. Callender proved to be a troublesome hothead with no sense of discretion.
During this time, Jefferson was serving as vice president under President John Adams. Callender wrote Jefferson twenty-nine letters, but Jefferson largely ignored him, replying only five times in a two-year period. Because of Jefferson’s lack of response, Callender complained to James Madison that he “might as well have addressed a letter to Lot’s wife.”56 Jefferson avoided Callender but continued occasional charitable gifts for the support of Callender’s young children.
When Jefferson became president in 1801, he declared the Sedition Law to be unconstitutional and pardoned everyone who had been prosecuted under it (about two dozen individuals).57 Jefferson also ordered that the fines collected under that law be returned with interest. But the Federalist sheriff who had collected the $200 fine from Callender refused and even ignored direct orders from Secretary of State James Madison to refund the fine.
Callender, now free, was unaware of these difficulties with the sheriff and became infuriated against Jefferson, blaming him for not returning his $200. Secretary of State Madison reported to Virginia governor James Monroe, “Callender, I find, is under a strange error on the subject of his fine, and in a strange humor in consequence of it.”58
Callender became enraged at Jefferson. Believing that Jefferson’s party owed him something for what he considered his long “service” on their behalf, he demanded a presidential appointment as the US postmaster for Richmond—an appointment that both President Jefferson and Secretary of State Madison properly refused him.
Meanwhile, Jefferson, still unable to obtain the return of the fine from the Federalist sheriff, took steps to repay Callender’s fine from private funds. As he told Governor Monroe:
I think with you we had better refund his fine by private contributions. I enclose you an order on Gibson & Jefferson for $50, which I believe is one fourth of the whole sum.59
Only three days later, following a meeting in which Callender responded viciously against Jefferson’s offer of personal help, the formerly sympathetic Jefferson understandably underwent a complete change of heart toward Callender. As he explained to Monroe:
Since [my last letter, three days ago], Callender is arrived here. He did not call on me; but understanding he was in distress, I sent Captain [Meriwether] Lewis to him with $50 to inform him we were making some inquiries as to his fine, which would take a little time; and lest he should suffer in the meantime I had sent him &c. His language to Captain Lewis was very high-toned. He intimated that he was in possession of things which he could and would make use of in a certain case: that he received the $50 not as a charity, but a due, in fact as hush money; that I knew what he expected, viz. a certain office [Richmond postmaster], and more to this effect. Such a misconstruction of my charities puts an end to them forever. You will therefore be so good as to make no use of the order I enclosed you [to repay the fine by private funds].60
Jefferson’s instructions to withhold further relief from Callender arrived too late. As Governor Monroe told Jefferson, “Your [letter] just received. It is to be regretted that Capt[ain] Lewis paid the money. . . . [Y]our resolution to terminate all communication with him is wise.”61
On the same day Monroe wrote Jefferson, Madison wrote Monroe describing the outrageous nature of his own meeting with Callender:
Callender made his appearance here some days ago in the same temper which is described in your letter. He seems implacable [bull-headed] towards the principle object of his complaints and not to be satisfied in any respect withou
t an office. It has been my lot to bear the burden of receiving & repelling his claims. . . . It is impossible however to reason concerning a man whose imagination & passions have been so fermented [soured].62
Madison then explained to Monroe part of the reason why he believed Callender was so irrational:
Do you know, too, that besides his other passions, he is under the tyranny of that of love? . . . The object of his flame is in Richmond. . . . He has flattered himself, and probably been flattered by others, into a persuasion that the emoluments [compensations] and reputation of a post office would obtain her in marriage. Of these recommendations, however, he is sent back in despair. With respect to the fine even, I fear that delays, if nothing more, may still torment him and lead him to torment others. . . . Callender’s irritation, produced by his wants, is whetted constantly by his suspicion that the difficulties, if not intended, are the offspring of indifference in those who have interposed in his behalf [Jefferson].63
Five days later Governor Monroe responded to Madison’s letter, telling him of his own meeting with Callender:
I have your [letter] and have since seen Mr. Callender, with whom I had much conversation. . . . I dwelt particularly on the remission of the fine. . . . Still he added that some little office would greatly accommodate him, and without one he did not know how he should subsist. That he was tired of the press &c.64
But even while Jefferson was working to obtain the return of the fine, Callender announced his intention to punish Jefferson. Having obtained neither the postal appointment (or any other “little office”) nor the full return of his fine, he became incensed against Jefferson. Complaining that Jefferson had turned his back on him, he grumbled “I now begin to know what ingratitude is”65 and issued the ominous warning that he was “not the man who is either to be oppressed or plundered with impunity.”66
The disgruntled Callender who previously had written only for Republican newspapers—that is, pro-Jefferson and Anti-Federalist publications—actively sought a job with the Recorder, a Federalist newspaper in Richmond that was openly critical of President Jefferson. Callender then launched a series of virulent attacks against Jefferson in articles written throughout 1801, 1802, and 1803, accusing him, among other things, of “dishonesty, cowardice, and gross personal immorality.”67 It was in these defamatory articles that Callender charged that Jefferson had fathered a child by Hemings.
Callender’s charge about Hemings received broad circulation when the Federalists of Massachusetts—strident and vocal opponents of President Jefferson, who used every opportunity to attack him—reprinted the charges about Jefferson and Hemings in a series of articles entitled “Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Thomas Jefferson.”68
Significantly, the claims about Jefferson and Hemings were always associated with partisan smear politics. Callender died less than a year after publishing his charges. During that time he was constantly drunk, and after threatening suicide on several occasions, he eventually drowned in three feet of water in the James River. A coroner’s jury ruled his death accidental, due to intoxication.
Before his death, however, Callender acknowledged that his attacks against Jefferson had been motivated by his belief that Jefferson had refused to repay his $200 fine.69 In fact, in his article that first “exposed” the Jefferson-Hemings “relationship,” Callender confirmed his own personal, vindictive motivation by closing the article with these stinging words:
When Mr. Jefferson has read this article, he will find leisure to estimate how much has been lost or gained by so many unprovoked attacks upon J. T. Callender.70
History has proved many of Callender’s charges against Jefferson to be totally inaccurate. For example, in his initial article in which he first “revealed” the Jefferson-Hemings “affair,” Callender had asserted:
It is well known that the man whom it delighteth the people to honor [President Jefferson] keeps, and for many years past has kept as his concubine one of his own slaves. Her name is Sally. The name of her eldest son is Tom. His features are said to bear a striking, although sable [dark-skinned] resemblance to those of the president himself. The boy is ten or twelve years of age. His mother went to France in the same vessel with Mr. Jefferson.71
This story was widely circulated, and the “striking resemblance” hearsay was often repeated to point to Jefferson’s guilt. For example, the 1802 Frederick-Town Herald declared:
Other information assures us that Mr. Jefferson’s Sally and their children are real persons. . . . Her son, whom Callender calls president Tom, we also are assured, bears a strong likeness to Mr. Jefferson.72
Interestingly, the “striking resemblance” charge is still invoked today as “proof” that Jefferson fathered Hemings’ children,73 but since the recent DNA testing unequivocally proved that Sally’s son Tom was not the son of Thomas Jefferson, Callender’s allegations that Tom bore a “striking resemblance to the president himself” are completely meaningless.
Furthermore, Callender claimed that Jefferson and Sally “went to France on the same vessel,” which was also wrong; they went on two separate vessels, one in 1784 and the other in 1787. Callender made many other similarly erroneous claims.
He also wrongly predicted that Americans—especially the Federalists—would widely embrace his charges against Jefferson as true. Only three weeks after his first article, he forewarned:
More About Sally and the President. For two days after the publication of the Recorder of September 1st, the [Jefferson’s supporters] were at a loss what to say or think. The Philistine priesthood were not more confounded when they saw their idol Dagon prostrate and broke to pieces [1 Samuel 5:1–4]. . . . Sally’s business makes a prodigious [monumental] noise. . . . After this discovery, I do not believe that at the next election [of 1804], Jefferson could obtain two votes on the eastern side of the Susquehanna [the general location of Jefferson opponents], and I think hardly four upon this side of it [the area of Jefferson supporters]. He will, therefore, be laid aside [i.e., not reelected].74
But Jefferson was easily reelected. Even many of his Federalist opponents rejected Callender’s ludicrous charges. For example, David Humphreys of Philadelphia wrote in that city’s newspaper, the Aurora, that he had “shown that the story of Sally was a falsehood,”75 and General Henry Lee, an ardent Federalist, declared that “there is no foundation whatsoever for that story.”76
Callender was also wrong when he believed that he could besmirch the character of Jefferson supporters. He made an absurd string of accusations against James Madison’s character,77 and he also proffered equally ridiculous claims against Presidents George Washington and John Adams. He charged Washington with filling the American governmental process with “confusion and iniquity” and with “corrupt[ing] the American judges.”78 He charged Adams with attempting to overthrow the Constitution, betraying the nation to foreign powers, committing voter fraud and ballot tampering, allowing the slaughter of Americans by the Indians, ruining American morals, and even wishing that the British had won the American Revolution.79
The charges Callender made against Washington, Adams, and Madison were so ridiculous that they were never believed by objective historians—or, for that matter, by thoughtful citizens. So why, then, have Callender’s charges against Jefferson survived when his charges against all the others deservedly perished long ago?
Because a few Deconstructionist writers in recent years have revived the work of Callender (called the “single poisoned spring” of Jefferson history80), citing his allegations against Jefferson as if they were indisputably proved while failing to mention Callender’s established and well-documented pattern of false reporting, as well as the scurrilous, self-serving motives behind his published accusations. As Pulitzer Prize–winning historian James Truslow Adams explained, “Almost every scandalous story about Jefferson which is still whispered or believed can be traced to the lies in Callender’s book.”81
Merrill Peterson, professor of history at the Univers
ity of Virginia, holds the same opinion,82 and Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Dumas Malone described Callender as “one of the most notorious scandalmongers and character assassins in American history.”83 Stanford University historian John C. Miller describes Callender as “the most unscrupulous scandalmonger of the day . . . a journalist who stopped at nothing and stooped to anything.”84 He explains:
Callender made his charges against Jefferson without fear and without research. He had never visited Monticello; he had never spoken to Sally Hemings; and he never made the slightest effort to verify the “facts” he so stridently proclaimed. It was “journalism” at its most reckless, wildly irresponsible, and scurrilous. Callender was not an investigative journalist; he never bothered to investigate anything. For him, the story, especially if it reeked of scandal, was everything; truth, if it stood in his way, was summarily mowed down.85
Even historian Benjamin Ellis Martin—a strident, nineteenth-century Jefferson-bashing critic who easily might have accepted Callender’s charges—found no basis for believing them. To the contrary, he described Callender as a writer who did “effective scavenger work” in “scandal, slanders, lies, libels, scurrility” and one who excelled in “blackguardism” (unprincipled, vile writing).86 Martin, a confirmed anti-Jeffersonian, therefore concluded:
I am unable to find one good word to speak of this man. . . . He was a journalistic janizary [mercenary], his pen always for sale on any side, a hardened and habitual liar, a traitorous and truculent [malicious] scoundrel; and the world went better when he sank out of sight beneath the waters of the James River.87
Significantly, Jefferson’s long political career had been characterized by numerous personal attacks launched against him, especially during his presidential election. Jefferson placed the number of attacks in the thousands,88 of which Callender’s had been just one. In fact, after surveying the charges published against Jefferson by his opponents, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Charles Warren concluded that “no other presidential campaign in American history ever brought forth such vicious and scurrilous personal attacks.”89 And Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Dumas Malone similarly observed that Jefferson “suffered open personal attacks which, in severity and obscenity, have rarely if ever been matched.”90
