The Jefferson Lies

by David Barton

  Jefferson knew that he could never rebut the falsehoods as rapidly as they could be concocted. So long before Callender leveled his charges against him, Jefferson had made it his standing personal policy to ignore all ridiculous claims made against him by his enemies.

  He gave three reasons for this policy: First, any response he made might seem to dignify the charges.91 Second, he was convinced that his personal integrity would eventually prevail over the false accusations made against him.92 And third, Jefferson trusted the good judgment of the people.93

  Jefferson acknowledged that he could have successfully taken libelers like Callender to court, but he refused to lower himself to that level, instead turning them over to the Judge of the universe to Whom they would eventually answer. As he explained:

  I know that I might have filled the courts of the United States with actions for these slanders, and have ruined perhaps many persons who are not innocent. But this would be no equivalent to the loss of [my own] character [by retaliating against them]. I leave them, therefore, to the reproof of their own consciences. If these do not condemn them, there will yet come a day when the false witness will meet a judge Who has not slept over his slanders.94

  Amazingly, Jefferson’s lifelong policy of refusing to answer false claims has today been translated into culpatory evidence against him. In fact, one prominent national news outlet pointed out that since Jefferson “never directly denied”95 having an affair with Sally, it was proof that he had fathered her children! (Consider the unreasonableness of declaring that an individual is guilty of whatever he does not deny.)

  Even though Jefferson’s public policy was silence, on two occasions he privately took pen in hand to recount his relationship with Callender to two friends. One was a lengthy letter to Governor James Monroe in which Jefferson explained:

  I am really mortified at the base ingratitude of Callender. It presents human nature in a hideous form. . . . When the Political Progress of Britain first appeared in this country [in 1794] . . . I was speaking of it in terms of strong approbation to a friend in Philadelphia when he asked me if I knew that the author [Callender] was then in the city, a fugitive from prosecution on account of that work and in want of employ for his subsistence. This was the first of my learning that Callender was the author of the work. I considered him as a man of science fled from persecution, and assured my friend of my readiness to do whatever could serve him. . . . In 1798, I think, I was applied . . . to contribute to his relief. I did so. In 1799 . . . I contributed again. He had, by this time, paid me two or three personal visits. When he fled in a panic from Philadelphia to General Mason’s [in Virginia], he wrote to me that he was a fugitive in want of employ. . . . I availed myself of this pretext to cover a mere charity [and sent him] fifty dollars. . . . I considered him still as a proper object of benevolence. The succeeding year, he again wanted money. . . . I made his letter, as before, the occasion of giving him another fifty dollars. He considers these as proofs of my approbation [approval]. . . . Soon after I was elected to the government, Callender came on here, wishing to be made postmaster at Richmond. I knew him to be totally unfit for it; and however ready I was to aid him with my own charities (and I then gave him fifty dollars), I did not think the public offices confided to me to give away as charities. He took it in mortal offense. . . . This is the true state of what has passed between him and me.96

  In the second private letter about the Callender situation, written to Abigail Adams, Jefferson substantially repeated what he had said in his letter to Monroe and then closed by telling her:

  I am not afraid to appeal to the nation at large, to posterity, and still less to that Being Who sees Himself our motives, Who will judge us from His own knowledge of them.97

  Jefferson repeatedly affirmed that he had nothing to hide.98

  Therefore, none of the three sources of evidence often invoked against Jefferson (the DNA testing, oral tradition, or the early published claims of Callender) provide any credible basis for believing that Jefferson fathered any of Hemings’ children. Nevertheless, Deconstructionist attempts to convict Jefferson continue and have even expanded into new venues.

  For example, Jefferson is now being subjected to the tests of “psychohistory” in order to “prove” that he had an affair with Hemings. “Psychohistory” occurs when, rather than accepting what someone actually said, a psychological counteranalysis of that person’s words is attempted in an effort to establish their “true” motives. In my opinion, the result of such an analysis is psychobabble. Fawn Brodie used this method in her book Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History in order to extract an implied confession from Jefferson. She explains:

  The first evidence that Sally Hemings had become for Jefferson a special preoccupation may be seen in one of the most subtly illuminating of all his writings, the daily journal he kept on a seven-week trip through eastern France, Germany, and Holland in March and April of 1788. . . . Anyone who reads with care these twenty-five pages must find it singular that in describing the countryside between these cities he used the word “mulatto” eight times.99

  Since Sally Hemings was mulatto, Brodie concludes that Jefferson’s use of that word when describing Land proves that he had a sexual relationship with her. Yet mulatto is used by Jefferson—who was by profession a farmer, scientist, and botanist—in his diary to describe the composition and color of the soil.

  Notice the examples Brodie provides—examples that she claims “prove” Jefferson’s sexual infatuation with Hemings:

  “The road goes thro’ the plains of the Maine, which are mulatto and very fine . . .”; “It has a good Southern aspect, the soil a barren mulatto clay . . .”; “It is of South Western aspect, very poor, sometimes gray, sometimes mulatto . . .”; “These plains are sometimes black, sometimes mulatto, always rich . . .”; “. . . the plains are generally mulatto . . .”; “. . . the valley of the Rhine . . . varies in quality, sometimes a rich mulatto loam, sometimes a poor sand . . .”; “. . . the hills are mulatto but also whitish . . .”; “Meagre mulatto clay mixed with small broken stones . . .”100

  Since the word mulatto is used only in a racial sense today, Modernist Brodie concludes that it was only used this way two centuries ago. She therefore claims that her psychoanalysis of Jefferson’s observation of soil in Europe is “proof ” of an affair with Hemings, but by so doing, she shows herself unfamiliar with both agriculture and linguistic etymology. Consider a few examples of the word mulatto as commonly used in early American agriculture:

  Land rich—very rich; a deep stiff mulatto soil.

  —Texas, 1846101

  Both the deep black soil of the uplands and the light colored or mulatto soil peculiar to the bluff deposit are alike noted for productiveness.

  —Iowa, 1875102

  The soil . . . is a sandy, mulatto-colored soil; it has been called the corn soil, though it produces wheat, cotton, tobacco, potatoes, etc.

  —Tennessee, 1879103

  Highland is in the center of a tract of dark, “mulatto” soil of exceptional fertility, whence comes a large amount of farming trade.

  —Kansas, 1883104

  [T]he soil is called a “mulatto soil,” and is that kind best adapted to the raising of cotton. It is a loamy clay, composed largely also of vegetable mould.

  —Arkansas, 1889105

  According to Brodie’s reasoning, apparently all of these farmers who reported on soil conditions in their state must have also had “a special preoccupation” and attraction for women of mixed race since they also used the word mulatto in an agricultural context.

  As Jefferson biographer Willard Sterne Randall correctly notes, Brodie’s entire supposition is farcical:

  [W]hen Jefferson used the term mulatto to describe soil during his French travels, Sally was still on a ship with Polly, accompanying her to France. If he [Jefferson] had ever noticed her or remembered her at all, Sally had been only ten years old when Jefferson last visited Monticello hurriedly in 1784. . .
. She was only eight when Jefferson last resided at Monticello and was mourning his wife’s death. Unless Brodie was suggesting that Jefferson consoled himself by having an affair with an eight-year-old child, the whole chain of suppositions is preposterous.106

  Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Garry Wills similarly observed of Brodie’s work:

  She has managed to write a long and complex study of Jefferson without displaying any acquaintance with eighteenth-century plantation conditions, political thought, literary conventions, or scientific categories—all of which greatly concerned Jefferson. She constantly finds double meanings in colonial language, basing her arguments on the present usage of key words [i.e., Modernism].107

  In summary, there exists no evidence, either modern or ancient, that Thomas Jefferson fathered even one child with Sally Hemings, much less five. In fact, if Jefferson were alive today and if he were charged with a crime for allegedly having sex with the young Hemings, it would be an open-and-shut case: he would be acquitted.

  LIE # 2

  Thomas Jefferson Founded a

  Secular University

  Jefferson was involved in many educational endeavors, but his greatest, and certainly the one dearest to his heart, was his founding of the University of Virginia. If one accepts the modern mischaracteriza-tion that Jefferson was antireligious and hostile to Christianity, it then becomes logical to assert that he would promote the secular and oppose the religious in his educational endeavors—especially at his beloved university. Reflective of this proposition, modern academics claim:

  Jefferson also founded the first intentionally secularized university in America. His vision for the University of Virginia was for education finally free from traditional Christian dogma. He had a disdain for the influence that institutional Christianity had on education. At the University of Virginia there was no Christian curriculum and the school had no chaplain. Its faculty were religiously Deists and Unitarians.

  —Professor Daryl Cornett, Mid-America Theological Seminary1

  After Jefferson left the presidency in 1809, he embarked on . . . the University of Virginia. . . . A Deist and a secular humanist, Jefferson rejected the religious tradition that had provided the foundation for the colonial universities.

  —Professor Anita Vickers, Penn State University2

  No part of the regular school day was set aside for religious worship. . . . Jefferson did not permit the room belonging to the university to be used for religious purposes.

  —Professor Leonard Levy, Southern Oregon State University, Claremont Graduate School3

  The university which Thomas Jefferson established at Charlottesville in Virginia was . . . distinctly and purposely secular.

  —Professor John Brubacher, Yale University, University of Michigan; Professor Willis Rudy, Fairleigh Dickinson University4

  Many others make similar declarations, and several of their recurring claims are worthy of investigation.

  1. Did Jefferson have a disdain for the influence of Christianity on education?

  2. Did he found the first intentionally secular university in America?

  3. Did he hire only Deists and Unitarians for his faculty?

  4. Did he exclude chaplains and religious curriculum from the school?

  Most Americans would probably answer “yes” to these four questions, for they have been told repeatedly by many of today’s writers, both academic and journalistic, that Jefferson was an ardent secularist. But what if this is wrong? What if Jefferson’s own education, one that so thoroughly prepared him for the national and international scene, had been largely religious and personally satisfying to him? If such was the case, then it is illogical to assert that Jefferson would seek to exclude from others that which had benefited him; so let’s begin with a look at Jefferson’s own education.

  Jefferson was born in 1743. As a youngster he attended the Anglican St. James’ Church of Northam Parish with his family. The church was pastored by the Reverend William Douglass, and from 1752 to 1758 Jefferson attended the Reverend Douglass’ school. In 1758 his family moved to Albemarle County and attended the Anglican Fredericksville Parish Church, pastored by the Reverend James Fontaine Maury, and from 1758 to 1760 Jefferson attended the Reverend Maury’s school. In 1760, after having been trained in religious schools, the seventeen-year-old Jefferson entered William and Mary, another religious school directly affiliated with the Anglican Church.

  Part of Jefferson’s daily routine at the college included morning and evening prayers from the Book of Common Prayer with lengthy Scripture readings. Scottish instructor Dr. William Small, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was Jefferson’s favorite instructor. Jefferson later acknowledged: “It was my great good fortune, and what probably fixed the destinies of my life, that Dr. William Small of Scotland, was then professor.”5

  Interestingly, many of the best instructors in early America were Scottish clergymen. As noted historian George Marsden affirmed, “[I]t is not much of an exaggeration to say that outside of New England, the Scots were the educators of eighteenth-century America.”6 These Scottish instructors regularly tutored students in what was known as the Scottish Common Sense philosophy—a method under which not only Jefferson but also other notable Virginia Founding Fathers were trained, including George Washington, James Madison, George Mason, Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Nelson. Gaillard Hunt, head of the manuscript division of the Library of Congress, reported:

  One reason why the ruling class in Virginia acted with such unanimity [during the Revolution] . . . was that a large proportion of them had received the same kind of education. This usually came first from clergymen.7

  The Scottish Common Sense approach was developed by the Reverend Thomas Reid (1710–1796) to counter the skepticism of stridently secular European writers and philosophers such as Hume, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Malby. Reid’s approach argued that common sense should shape philosophy rather than philosophy shaping common sense. He asserted that normal, everyday language could express philosophical principles in a way that could be understood by ordinary individuals rather than just so-called elite thinkers and philosophers.

  The principle tenets of Scottish Common Sense philosophy were straightforward:

  1. There is a God

  2. God placed into every individual a conscience—a moral sense written on his or her heart (cf. Jeremiah 31:33; Romans 2:14–15; Hebrews 8:10; 10:16; etc.)

  3. God established “first principles” in areas such as law, government, education, politics, and economics, and these first principles could be discovered by the use of common sense

  4. There is no conflict between reason and revelation. Both come directly from God, and revelation fortifies and clarifies reason

  This is the philosophy under which Jefferson was educated at William and Mary. After completing his studies there, Jefferson entered five years of legal training with distinguished attorney and judge George Wythe, who later became a signer of the Declaration of Independence. A central subject of Jefferson’s legal studies was English jurist Sir William Blackstone’s four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769).

  That work was an important legal textbook not only for Jefferson but for all American law students. Founding Father James Iredell, a ratifier of the US Constitution who was placed on the US Supreme Court by President George Washington, affirmed that Blackstone’s Commentaries was “the manual of almost every student of law in the United States.”8 Jefferson affirmed that American lawyers used Blackstone’s with the same dedication and reverence that Muslims used the Koran.9

  In this indispensable legal text, Blackstone forcefully expounded the four prime tenets of Scottish Common Sense philosophy:

  Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator. . . . This will of his Maker is called the law of nature. . . . These are the eternal immutable laws of good and evil to which the Creator Himself in all His dispensations conforms, and which He has enabled
human reason to discover so far as they are necessary for the conduct of human actions. . . . And if our reason were always . . . clear and perfect, . . . the task would be pleasant and easy; we should need no other guide but this. But every man now finds the contrary in his own experience: that his reason is corrupt and his understanding full of ignorance and error. This has given manifold occasion for the benign interposition of Divine Providence, which . . . hath been pleased at sundry times and in divers manners to discover and enforce its laws by an immediate and direct revelation. The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or Divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures. . . . Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.10

  These same four Scottish Common Sense tenets were subsequently included by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence.

  Even though Jefferson’s own personal education at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels consistently incorporated religious instruction, today’s writers repeatedly insist that it was the secular European Enlightenment rather than Scottish Common Sense that was the greatest influence on Jefferson’s thinking. For example: