The Jefferson Lies

by David Barton

  From him seemed to flow all the pleasures of my life. To him I owed all the small blessings and joyful surprises of my childish and girlish years. . . . When about fifteen years old, I began to think of a watch, but knew the state of my father’s finances promised no such indulgence. . . . [But my grandfather gave me] an elegant lady’s watch with chain and seals, [which] was in my hand, which trembled for very joy. My Bible came from him, my Shakespeare, my first writing-table, my first handsome writing-desk, my first Leghorn hat [a fancy hat adorned with ribbons], my first silk dress. What, in short, of all my small treasures did not come from him? . . . Our grandfather seemed to read our hearts, to see our invisible wishes, to be our good genie to wave the fairy wand to brighten our young lives by his goodness and his gifts.30

  But Thomas did not spoil his grandchildren with his generous gifts; he also trained them and shaped their character, just as he had with his own children. Ellen recalled:

  He reproved without wounding us, and commended without making us vain. He took pains to correct our errors and false ideas, checked the bold, encouraged the timid, and tried to teach us to reason soundly and feel rightly. Our smaller follies he treated with good-humored raillery [teasing], our graver ones with kind and serious admonition. He was watchful over our manners, and called our attention to every violation of propriety [politeness and decorum].31

  Jefferson’s grandson, Thomas, affirmed that his grandfather was “soft and feminine in his affections to his family; he entered into and sympathized with all their feelings, winning them to paths of virtue by the soothing gentleness of his manner.”32

  Jefferson also had a genuine sense of humor and would offer tongue-in-cheek comments that his grandchildren described as playful or “sportive.”33 Some targets for humor never seem to change, such as lawyers and doctors, and according to one of the original professors at the University of Virginia, Jefferson joked openly about doctors:

  [H]e would speak jocularly [jokingly], especially to the unprofessional, of medical practice; and on one occasion . . . [i]n the presence of Dr. Everett . . . he remarked that whenever he saw three physicians together, he looked up to discover whether there was not a turkey-buzzard in the neighborhood. The annoyance of the doctor, I am told, was manifest.34

  Jefferson was truly a remarkable man. He had some faults, probably much fewer than many other great leaders, but he had numerous virtues worthy of study and emulation. He was unquestionably used as an instrument of God, and all races and generations of Americans—especially God-loving Americans—have benefited from the blessings he helped secure for this nation and its posterity.

  What was once said about George Washington by President Calvin Coolidge can equally be said of Thomas Jefferson:

  We cannot yet estimate him. We can only indicate our reverence for him and thank the Divine Providence which sent him to serve and inspire his fellow men.35

  Notes

  INTRODUCTION

  1. Robert G. Parkinson, “First from the Right: Massive Resistance and the Image of Thomas Jefferson in the 1950s,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 112/1. Abstract available at http://www.vahistorical.org/publications/abstract_parkinson.htm (accessed February 11, 2011).

  2. John Leland, “A Blow at the Root: Being a Fashionable Fast-Day Sermon, Delivered at Cheshire, April 9, 1801,” in The Writings of the Late Elder John Leland, Including Some Events in His Life, Written by Himself, with Additional Sketches, ed. L. F. Greene (New York: G. W. Wood, 1845), 255.

  3. Edwin A. Alderman, Classics Old and New; A Series of School Readers; A Fifth Reader (New York: American Book Company, 1907), 99.

  4. Moses Jacob Ezekiel, “Thomas Jefferson,” United States Senate, accessed January 31, 2011, http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/artifact/Sculpture_22_00002.htm.

  5. Leland, “A Blow at the Root,” 55.

  6. Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monticell, vol. 6 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1981).

  7. Thomas Marshall Green, Historic Families of Kentucky (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke Co., 1889), 73.

  8. Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 7 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 585.

  9. Benjamin Rush, Letters of Benjamin Rush, ed. L. H. Butterfield, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1951), 779.

  10. John Quincy Adams, Diary of John Quincy Adams, ed. David Grayson Allen, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), 233.

  11. Ezra Stiles, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, ed. Franklin Bowditch Dexter, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner’s and Sons, 1901), 125.

  12. George Washington, The Papers of George Washington, ed. W. W. Abbott, vol. 6 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), 294.

  13. Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve, vol. 2 (New York: George Adlard, 1838), 186.

  14. John Kennedy, “Remarks at a Dinner Honoring Nobel Prize Winners of the Western Hemisphere,” The American Presidency Project, accessed April 29, 1962, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=8623&st=&st1.

  15. Leilani Corpus, “Tiananmen Square Massacre,” The Forerunner, June, 1989, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0092_Tiananmen.html.

  16. Esther B. Fein, “Clamor in the East; Unshackled Czech Workers Declare Their Independence,” New York Times, November 28, 1989, http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/28/world/clamor-in-the-east-unshackled-czech-workers-declare-their-independence.html.

  17. Thomas L. Friedman, “Upheaval in the East; Havel’s ‘Paradoxical’ Plea: Help Soviets,” New York Times, February 22, 1990, http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/22/world/upheaval-in-the-east-havel-s-paradoxical-plea-help-soviets.html?scp=2&sq=Thomas+Jefferson&st=nyt&pagewanted=all.

  18. Ethan Schwartz, “Kosinski’s Literary Homecoming: ‘Painted Bird’ to Be Published in Poland,” Washington Post, April 5, 1989, 1.

  19. Mikhail Gorbachev, “Notable Comments on Jefferson (20th Century),” Monticello, April 13, 1993, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/notable-comments-jefferson-20th-century.

  20. David Remnick, “Ukraine Split on Independence as Republic Awaits Bush Visit,” Washington Post, August 1, 1991, 1.

  21. Margaret Thatcher, “Lady Margaret Thatcher at Monticello, on the Occasion of the 253rd Anniversary of the Birth of Thomas Jefferson and the Presentation of the First Thomas Jefferson Medal for Statesmanship,” Monticello, April 13, 1996, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/notable-comments-jefferson-20th-century.

  22. Benson J. Lossing, Biographical Sketches of the Signers of the Declaration of American Independence (New York: George F. Cooledge & Brother, 1848), 174.

  23. George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the American Continent, vol. 3 (Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1864), 462–463.

  24. 24. Richard Frothingham, The Rise of the Republic of the United States (Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1872), 235.

  25. Benson J. Lossing, Harpers’ Popular Cyclopedia of United States, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1889), 717.

  26. John Fiske, The American Revolution, vol. 1 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897), 193.

  27. Edward S. Ellis, Great Americans of History: Thomas Jefferson a Character Sketch (Chicago: Union School Furnishing Company, 1898), 38, 47.

  28. William Eleroy Curtis, The True Thomas Jefferson (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1901), 388.

  29. Henry William Elson, History of the United States of America (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914), 405.

  30. Ken Burns, “Notable Comments on Jefferson (20th Century),” Monticello, June 7, 1996, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/notable-comments-jefferson-20th-century.

  31. Jack M. Balkin, “Tradition, Betrayal, and the Politics of Deconstruction—Part II,” Yale.edu, 1998, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/articl
es/trad2.htm.

  32. Kyle-Anne Shiver, “Deconstructing Obama,” AmericanThinker.com, July 28, 2008, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/deconstructing_obama.html.

  33. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s.v. “deconstruction,” accessed November 08, 2011, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/155306/deconstruction.

  34. Of the 27, 14 women and 5 men were tired, found guilty and hung; 1 man was tortured to death by crushing because he refused to cooperate with the court by not answering their questions. To persuade him to talk they took him to a field and put a board on him with rocks. They increased the number of rocks until he would cooperate, but he continued to refuse and was crushed to death. He was therefore never convicted but is considered the 20th victim as he was on trial for being a wizard. And 7 individuals died in prison awaiting trial; one was a baby in prison with her mother, who was awaiting trial as a witch. “The Salem Witch Trials of 1692,” Salem Witch Museum, January 13, 2011 (at: http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/education/index.shtml) per the museum’s Department of Education.

  35. William Warren Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 61.

  36. Charles B. Galloway, Christianity and the American Commonwealth (Nashville: Publishing House Methodist Episcopal Church, 1898), 110

  37. Ibid.

  38. Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Allen Johnson, (New York: Charles Scribber’s Sons, 1929), s.v. “John Wise,” “Increase Mather,” and “Thomas Brattle.” See also Mark Gribbean, “Salem Witch Trials: Reason Returns,” Court TV: Crime Library, accessed February 3, 2001, (http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/not_guilty/salem_witches/12.html?sect=12.

  39. 39. John Fiske, Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1890), 147–148, 192.

  40. Francis J. Bremer, The Puritan Experiment (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 1995), 62; “The Massachusetts Body of Liberties,” Hanover Historical Texts, 1641, accessed October 24, 2011, http://history.hanover.edu/texts/masslib.html.

  41. Ann Vileisis, Discovering the Unknown Landscape (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1997), 30; William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Charles Deane (Boston: Privately Printted, 1856), 135–136.

  42. Charles H. Thurber, ed., The School Review, vol. 6 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1898), 680; Royal Ralph Hinman, A Catalog of the Names of the Early Puritan Settlers of the Colony of Connecticut (Hartford: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company, 1852), 185; The Code of 1650, Being a Compilation of the Earliest Laws and Orders of the General Court of Connecticut (Hartford: Silus Andurs, 1822), 90–92, containing America’s first common or public school law.

  43. Dr. John Lye, “Some Post-Structural Assumptions,” Brock University, 1997, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/poststruct.php.

  44. Ibid.

  45. “Poststructuralist Approaches,” cnr.edu, accessed October 13, 2009, http://www2.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/poststructuralism.html.

  46. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s.v. “particularism,” accessed November 9, 2011, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/445119/particularism; Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s.v. “anthropology,” accessed November 09, 2011; “Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy, Identity Politics,” Stanford University accessed June, 16 2011, https://leibniz.stanford.edu/friends/preview/identity-politics/. See also “Identity Politics” or “Particularism,” Merriam-Webster, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/particularism?show=0&t=1308259578.

  47. Isaac Kramnick and Laurence Moore, The Godless Constitution (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996), 12, 22, 27 passim.

  48. See Ross Anderson, “ACLU President Says Organization Is Not Anti-Religion.” University Wire, 2006, HighBeam Research, accessed November 14, 2011, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-119656688.html; Jill Goetz, “Authors Argue the Religious Right Is Wrong about the Constitution,” Cornell Chronicle, accessed February 3, 2011, http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/96/2.1.96/godless.html; Ed Buckner, “It’s a Free Country, Not a Christian Nation,” Stephenjaygould.com, 1998, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/buckner_ncn.html; Matthew Dallek, “The Godless Constitution,” Washington Post, February 18, 1996, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/reviews/matthewdallek.htm.

  49. Kramnick and Moore, The Godless Constitution, 179.

  LIE #1: THOMAS JEFFERSON FATHERED SALLY HEMINGS’ CHILDREN

  1. Eugene A. Foster et al., “Jefferson Fathered Slave’s Last Child,” Nature 396 (November 5, 1998), 27–28.

  2. Eric Lander and Joseph Ellis, “Founding Father,” Nature 396 (November 5, 1998), 1.

  3. Christopher Hitchens, “What Do Jefferson and Clinton Have in Common (Besides Randiness)?” Ivory Tower, November 18, 1998, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www1.salon.com/it/feature/1998/11/cov_18featureb.html.

  4. Dr. David N. Mayer, “The Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings Myth and the Politicization of American History,” John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, April 9, 2001, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.ashbrook.org/articles/mayer-hemings.html.

  5. Henry Gee, “The Sex Life of President Thomas Jefferson,” Nature News, November 12, 1998, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.nature.com/news/1998/981112/full/news981112-1.html.

  6. Mayer, “The Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings Myth and the Politicization of American History.”

  7. See Andrea Dworkin, Woman Hating (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1974), 184; Gloria Steinem, Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1992), 259–261; Marilyn French, The War Against Women (New York: Summit Books, 1992), 182; Robin Morgan, The Word of a Woman (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992), 84; Catharine A. MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 88; Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1991), 138; Andrea Dworkin, Our Blood (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), 20; Andrea Dworkin, Letters from a War Zone: Writings 1976–1989 (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1988), 14, 118–119; Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 44–46, 220, 222.

  8. Peter S. Onuf, “Every Generation Is an ‘Independent Nation’: Colonization, Miscegenation, and the Fate of Jefferson’s Children,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. ser., vol. 57, no. 1 (January 2000), 157.

  9. Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1974); Barbara Chase-Riboud, Sally Hemings: A Novel (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979); Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1997).

  10. Several historical studies indicate that sexual relations between white masters and black slaves occurred only in a small minority of cases and that the overwhelming majority of white masters did not exercise a sexual prerogative over their female slaves. For example, by 1850, the American population had grown to a burgeoning 23.2 million; the slave population was 3.2 million, or 13.8 percent of the total population. Among the black population, over the sixty years since the first census in 1790, census numbers show a maximum of 11.2 percent of the 1850 population to be mulatto, which represents only 1.55 percent of the total America population. See, J. D. B. DeBow, Statistical View of the United States, Embracing Its Territory, Population—White, Free Colored, and Slave—Moral and Social Condition, Industry, Property, and Revenue; the Detailed Statistics of Cities, Towns, and Counties; Being a Compendium of the Seventh Census (Washington, DC: Beverley Tucker, 1854), 39, 63, 82; Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census, dir. William J. Harris, Negroes in the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1915), 129:15. See also Edward Byron Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States (Boston: The Gorham Press, 1918), 116.. Yet despite the clear statistical facts and numerous studies, writers s
uch as Peter S. Onuf, “Every Generation Is an ‘Independent Nation’: Colonization, Miscegenation, and the Fate of Jefferson’s Children,” The William and Mary Quarterly, (January 2000), 3rd. ser., vol. 57, no. 1, wherein he uniformly stereotypes all Anglos by decrying the “whites’ despotic power over their . . . female slaves’ bodies” (157); “the despotic power of white masters over the bodies of black female slaves,” (158); “white men exploited black women” (160); “White slave owners exploited their slave women” (160) passim.

  11. Eugene A. Foster et al., “Reply: The Thomas Jefferson Paternity Case,” Nature 396 (January 7, 1999), 32.

  12. Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Barbara B. Oberg, vol. 31 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 274.

  13. See Jone Johnson Lewis, “Mistress of Thomas Jefferson?” About.com, accessed July 14, 2011, http://womenshistory.about.com/od/hemingssally/a/sally_hemings.htm; Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 1, 72; Brodie, Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History, 228–232.

  14. The children generally agreed upon by most scholars include Thomas (born in 1790), Harriet I (apparently died in infancy), Beverly (son, born 1798), Harriet II (1801), Madison (1805), and Eston (1808). However, authorities from Monticello, where Hemings was a slave, indicate that she had six children. Other modern writers have placed the number of Hemings’ children at anywhere from four to seven or more. For example: four children—“Sally Hemings,” New York Times, accessed February 24, 2011, http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/sally_hemings/index.html; five children—McKenzie Wallenborn, “Dr. Wallenborn’s Minority Report,” Monticello, March 23, 2000, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/minority-report-monticello-research-committee-thomas-jefferson-and-sally); six children—“Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: A Brief Account,” Monticello, accessed February 24, 2011, http://www.monticello.org/plantation/hemingscontro/hemings-jefferson_contro.html; Lewis, “Sally Hemings: Mistress of Thomas Jefferson?”; R. F. Holznagel and Paul Hehn, “Who2.com profile of Sally Hemings,” Who2.com, accessed February 24, 2011, http://www.who2.com/sallyhemings.html; and seven children—Glenn Speark, “‘The Hemingses of Monticello’ by Annette Gordon-Reed: A Look at the Third President, His Slave Mistress and the Antebellum South,” Los Angeles Times, November 14, 2008, accessed October 24, 2011, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/14/entertainment/et-book14; and other varying numbers—Patrick Mullins, “Scholars Overturn Case for Thomas Jefferson’s Relationship with Slave Sally Hemings,” Capitalism Magazine, June 2, 2001, accessed November 17, 2011, http://www.tjheritage.org/newscomfiles/CapitalismMagazine.pdf; “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: Case Closed?” Claremont Institute, August 30, 2001, accessed October 24, 2011, http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1015/article_detail.asp; Harry Hellenbrand, review of “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy,” by Annette Gordon-Reed, H-Net Reviews, February, 1998, accessed October 24, 2011, www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showpdf.cgi?path=8812887909950.