30. DUMAS MALONE, JEFFERSON THE PRESIDENT: FIRST TERM 212 (1971). This point seems to be generally conceded even by revisionist scholars. See, e.g., BURSTEIN, THE INNER JEFFERSON 228.
31. BURSTEIN, THE INNER JEFFERSON 228. Technically, of course, written defamation is classed as “libel” rather than “slander.”
32. THE RECORDER, Sept. 1, 1802.
33. Rothman, in SALLY HEMINGS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON 95 (emphasis in original).
34. THE RECORDER, Sept. 22, 1804.
35. See Chapter Ten.
36. Even Professor Brodie acknowledges this point. See FAWN BRODIE, THOMAS JEFFERSON: AN INTIMATE HISTORY 317 (1974).
37. As will be discussed in Chapter Eleven, one of the most significant facts in this inquiry is the total absence of any evidence that anyone ever observed Thomas Jefferson and/or Sally Hemings do anything that would lend credence to the Callender allegations. There is no record that any of the hundreds of visitors to Monticello ever saw Jefferson going to the slave quarters at unusual hours, or ever saw Sally entering or leaving his chambers. There is not a single report of their walking off together, or even exchanging suggestive glances or the slightest caress or touch in passing during the normal routine of business at Monticello. Even after Jefferson’s death and her own de facto freedom, there is no record that Sally Hemings ever told a single individual that Thomas Jefferson fathered any of her children or otherwise treated her as other than a slave. There is no record that more than one of Sally’s known children ever alleged that Jefferson was their father, and the sole exception waited nearly fifty years after Jefferson’s death, provided no source for his assertion of facts he could not have personally known, and accompanied the charge with a number of other highly dubious claims. (See Chapter Four.) What we have instead are Callender’s charges supplemented by a newspaper story published more than seventy years later alleging that one of Sally’s children confirmed the story and a great deal of speculation by clever scholars about how such a relationship was “possible.”
38. See Chapter One (emphasis added).
39. Rothman, James Callender and Social Knowledge of Interracial Sex in Antebellum Virginia 89.
40. Id. at 101.
41. GORDON-REED, THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS 62.
42. [James T. Callender,] Armory, RICHMOND RECORDER, Sept. 15, 1802.
43. [James T. Callender,] Advertisement Extraordinary: Voyage to France, or, the Progress of a Republican President, RICHMOND RECORDER, Sep. 15, 1802. See also, Rothman, James Callender and Social Knowledge of Interracial Sex in Antebellum Virginia 95.
44. [Callender,] More About Sally and the President, RICHMOND RECORDER, Sep. 22, 1802. See also, Rothman, James Callender and Social Knowledge of Interracial Sex in Antebellum Virginia 95.
45. GORDON-REED, THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS 76. Professor Ellis characterizes Callender’s approach as a “truth-be-damned fashion. … ” ELLIS, AMERICAN SPHINX 259.
4
Madison Hemings’ 1873 “Memoir” in the Pike County Republican
* * *
In their commentary article accompanying the publication in Nature of Dr. Eugene Foster’s DNA study, Professors Eric S. Lander and Joseph J. Ellis argued that one of three pieces of evidence supporting a Jefferson-Hemings relationship1 was that “Sally’s fourth child, Madison, testified late in his life that Sally had identified Jefferson as the father of all her children.”2 Professor Annette Gordon-Reed asserts that Madison Hemings is “[t]he most important historical witness in this story. … ”3
In fact, most of the relevant statements attributed to Madison Hemings in the 1873 newspaper article to which the Nature commentary and Professor Gordon-Reed refer4 have to do with events that occurred years before his birth and are asserted without any explanation of how Madison might have known them to be true.5 Despite assertions by many scholars that Madison attributed his information to his mother, in fact the 1873 story makes no such claim. His “testimony”—in addition to other serious problems—was not that of a “witness” at all, but rather at best unsourced hearsay that is clearly at odds with the little relevant “eyewitness” testimony that is available.6
Nevertheless, this article is relied upon heavily by believers in a Jefferson-Hemings sexual relationship. Indeed, white historians who have refused to accept the truth of this account have been accused of racism.7 And now that six separate DNA tests have conclusively established that Thomas Woodson could not have been Thomas Jefferson’s child, the 1873 statement attributed to Madison Hemings is probably the strongest piece of evidence remaining in support of the proposition that Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children by Sally Hemings.
There are, however, many sound reasons for treating this account with skepticism—particularly where it is the only source for an allegation. Some of these pertain to Madison Hemings’ credibility and that of his unidentified sources. Others are more objective in nature. None of them require the reader to assume that prominent Jefferson scholars like Merrill Peterson8 were “racists.”
Madison Could Not Have Known Whether
Key Parts of His Story Were True
To begin with, the most important pieces of information for our purposes in Madison’s “memoir”—or, more accurately, a story written by Jefferson critic Samuel Wetmore, the editor of the Pike County Republican, claiming to represent the views of Madison Hemings—are statements about facts concerning which Madison could not possibly have possessed first-hand knowledge because they occurred before his birth. He is clearly repeating “hearsay,” and the credibility of his statements, assuming they are even reported accurately, thus can be no greater than that of his undisclosed source(s)—minus any risks that he might have intentionally or otherwise altered the story. Assuming that his source was one of the two individuals who would have presumably known the truth—Thomas Jefferson or Sally Hemings—the passage of five and four decades, respectively, since their deaths would presumably increase the risks of error even if the witness’s personal veracity could be established. Then we also must consider the additional risk that Samuel Wetmore might have intentionally altered the story to further his clear political agenda as a Republican Party activist. Indeed, the fact that his story does not state that Madison Hemings specifically attributed the assertions about his paternity to his mother (who left no independent record of ever claiming such a relationship with Jefferson to anyone) may make it even more suspect.
Madison admits having read about Jefferson after leaving Monticello, and—as will be discussed—some of his terminology and the spelling in the article suggest he (or Wetmore, who actually wrote the article) was familiar with the original James Callender and Thomas Turner allegations published seven decades before Madison allegedly asserted that Thomas Jefferson was his father. Since Madison himself cannot possibly be a reliable source for this information, and we cannot tell which parts of his account may have come from his mother, from the writings of scandalmongers like Callender, from rumors, from poor recollection of statements he may have heard a half century or more earlier, or even from a fertile imagination, some caution on the part of the reader is prudent even if the story attributed to him seems initially compelling.
The Words of the Story Are Likely Those of an
Anti-Jefferson Editor
The hearsay problem is further complicated by the fact that the article in question clearly seems to be in the words of Samuel F. Wetmore. Even Professor Gordon-Reed acknowledges both Wetmore’s strong anti-Jefferson sentiments9 and the fact that the story may well have been actually written by Wetmore,10 a point conceded earlier by Professor Brodie.11 Not only is the style consistent with several other articles written by Wetmore, but the vocabulary is nothing like that in other accounts of the era by self-educated former slaves.12 For example, the story includes the following language:
[A]n intimacy sprang up between them which ripened into love. … 13
[S]lave masters …had no compunctions of conscience which res
trained them from parting mother and child of however tender age. … 14
and
[A]s soon after her interment as he could attend to and arrange his domestic affairs in accordance with the changed circumstances of his family in consequence of this misfortune. … 15
Although the article about Madison Hemings was written in the first person, Professors Brodie and Gordon-Reed are almost certainly correct in noting that these are most likely the words of Samuel Wetmore; and, given his clear anti-Jefferson bias, this raises serious additional questions about the veracity of the entire account.
As Professor Gordon-Reed admits,16 Samuel Wetmore was a Republican Party activist who moved to Waverly, Ohio, following the Civil War “in hopes to be useful to the Pike County Republicans” and revived the local party newspaper.17 According to Professor Dumas Malone—perhaps the greatest Jefferson scholar to date—Wetmore was regarded by others as a “carpetbagger,” and “quite clearly, the story was solicited and published for a propaganda purpose.”18 Wetmore obviously had no first-hand knowledge about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and any alterations to Madison Hemings’ own statement would further decrease its value as historical evidence. And it seems clear that Wetmore was not overly concerned with getting his “facts” correct, unless Madison Hemings grew nearly three inches in height between ages twenty-six and sixty-eight.19
Madison Was the Only Member of His Family to Claim that Thomas Jefferson Was Their Father
Even if one assumes that Samuel Wetmore captured every nuance uttered by the elderly Madison Hemings and recorded it perfectly, there is still the question of why, if the story was true, neither Madison’s mother nor any of his siblings left any record of having made such an assertion. For that matter, why did Madison wait until nearly a half century after Thomas Jefferson’s death to assert his claim? Professor Brodie suggests that this delay was because Madison only “came to sense the importance of the story of his mother and her children” after moving to Ohio,20 but he lived in Ohio for more than thirty-five years before his story was recorded. Further, such speculation is hardly kind to a man of Madison Hemings’ reported intelligence (his friend Israel admits that he saw the benefit as soon as he was freed), and there may be other explanations for why Madison Hemings waited until most of the people who might credibly contradict his account had passed from the scene.21
There is also the problem of Madison Hemings’ clear bitterness towards Thomas Jefferson. Professor Brodie22 acknowledges this, as does Professor Gordon-Reed, repeatedly.23 Perhaps this bitterness was fully warranted; and if Thomas Jefferson had been his father and then ignored him, one could easily understand why, after quietly seething for half a century, an elderly Madison Hemings might have really “unloaded” his emotions to fellow Jefferson critic Samuel Wetmore. Whether or not this bitterness was justified, the question is whether Wetmore’s summary of remarks allegedly made by an angry and elderly Madison Hemings is the most probative evidence we have as to the pertinent facts in this inquiry. For without Madison’s 1873 account, and the confirmation by his friend Israel that will be discussed below, the case for Thomas Jefferson’s paternity rests only on DNA tests placing him in a group of more than two dozen potential fathers and a lot of circumstantial speculation.
Even if one assumes Madison Hemings had the best intentions, finest memory, and highest integrity—all of which are possible, but none of which are clearly established—his story still has major problems because of our uncertainty about his sources. Several scholars have assumed that he was merely retelling facts he learned from his mother, Sally Hemings. This is possible, but it does not explain why he does not mention that, or why neither Sally nor any of her other children made such claims in the many years after they were freed and left Monticello. 24
Even if Sally was Madison’s source, there is no assurance that these factual assertions were true. His mother might have conveyed such a story with the hope that it would instill pride in her son and perhaps give him additional confidence as he headed out into the uncertainty of life on his own. Writing in The Inner Jefferson, Andrew Burstein—who after the release of the DNA test results would embrace the idea that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings25—reasoned:
The evidence against Jefferson is largely provided by the testimony of Madison Hemings, Sally’s son who was born in 1805, when Jefferson was sixty-two. Madison told an Ohio newspaper in 1873 that his mother had informed him [sic] that Thomas Jefferson was his father, and that Sally first carried a child of Jefferson when she returned from France in 1789. Presumably, Madison believed these statements to be true. But it is also possible that his claim was contrived—by his mother or himself—to provide to an otherwise undistinguished biracial carpenter a measure of social respect. Would not his life have been made more charmed by being known as the son of Thomas Jefferson than the more obscure Peter or Samuel Carr?26
A contemporary newspaper in Waverly, Ohio, responded to the publication of Madison’s “memoirs” with the assertion that “there are at least fifty negroes in this county who lay claim to illustrious parentage,” and reasoning: “It sounds much better for the mother to tell her offspring that ‘master’ is their father than to acknowledge to them that some field hand, without a name, had raised her to the dignity of a mother.”27
To be sure, the language is offensively insensitive, but the underlying argument must be taken seriously. Indeed, as will be discussed, Madison’s fellow slave at Monticello, Israel Jefferson—who was the subject of a similar Wetmore article later that year—admitted that he had changed his surname from that of his known father (Gillette) to that of his master (Jefferson) after gaining his freedom because “it would give me more dignity to be called after so eminent a man.”28
We can be fairly confident that Sally Hemings was not the source of all that was in Madison’s story. First of all, he admits that “much” of his knowledge about Jefferson he learned not from personal observation but after Jefferson’s death—apparently from books.29 Indeed, some of the many errors in Madison’s statement as reported by Wetmore can be found in books about Jefferson published prior to the 1873 interview. During the later part of his life Thomas Jefferson had a number of health problems.30 Nevertheless, in 1862, Charles Scribner published the Reverend Hamilton W. Pierson’s Jefferson at Monticello, based upon lengthy interviews with former overseer Edmund Bacon. On page 71 of that book, we find this statement about Thomas Jefferson:
He always enjoyed the best of health. I don’t think he was ever really sick until his last sickness.31
Eleven years later, Madison Hemings’ story asserts:
My father generally enjoyed excellent health. I never knew him to have but one spell of sickness, and that was caused by a visit to the Warm Springs in 1818. Till within three weeks of his death he was hale and hearty. … ”32
Similarly, overseer Bacon asserted that Thomas Jefferson did not have much interest in agriculture, and Madison Hemings asserted: “Unlike Washington he had but little taste or care for agricultural pursuits.”33 One must wonder how Madison Hemings would know about George Washington’s agricultural interests, if not from books—as Washington died long before Madison was born. The similarity between the comments of Bacon and Madison Hemings on this issue was noted by Professor Ellis in American Sphinx.34
Some of Madison Hemings’ story pertains to alleged facts that he would have been extremely unlikely to have personally known while at Monticello, but which appeared in published materials which Madison or Wetmore might well have seen. For example, Madison is reported to have said that Jefferson “practiced law at the bar of the general court of the Colony.”35 The statement is true enough, but Thomas Jefferson’s practice before this court—which was composed of the governor and members of his council—ceased three decades before Madison Hemings was born, and the court itself had not existed for more than four decades before it was allegedly “recalled” by Madison Hemings in 1873.36 Among other places, this fact abo
ut Jefferson appears on page 33 of B. L. Rayner’s Life of Jefferson,37 which was published nearly forty years before Madison’s account, and on page 10 of William Linn’s The Life of Thomas Jefferson,38 also first published in 1834.39
Even more troubling, several of the unusual words which appear in the story appear in the earlier writings of James Callender,40 and a name misspelled in a published account by Jefferson critic Thomas Turner is misspelled in an identical manner in Madison’s account.41 It is quite possible that Madison had read a copy of Callender’s 1802 allegations, perhaps along with other documents circulated by Jefferson’s enemies, prior to his encounter with Samuel Wetmore. If so, such writings could have been the source for his belief that Thomas Jefferson was his father. It is even possible that—just as Professor Fawn Brodie, a century later, persuaded Eston Hemings’ descendants that their ancestor was Thomas Jefferson’s son42—Samuel Wetmore produced copies of the Callender articles and persuaded Madison that he was the famous president’s child.43 Since the article provides no source for this assertion, the only thing we can be certain about is that Madison Hemings could not personally have known that the key parts of the article (in terms of their relevance to our inquiry) attributed to him were true.
Portions of Madison’s Story Are
Inconsistent with Known Facts
Portions of Madison’s story are almost certainly false, and others are so inconsistent with facts that we do know as to be very difficult to believe. Assuming for the moment that these articles contained Madison’s statements unembellished by Samuel Wetmore, there is no reason to doubt that they were sincerely held beliefs and that Madison was recounting the truth as he understood it. After all, since the events occurred before his own birth, he could at best only be passing on statements he obtained from others. But if his source for the clearly erroneous information was the same source for his contention that Thomas Jefferson was his father, we need to view that allegation too with a cautious skepticism.
The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Page 20