The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy

by Robert F Turner

  We do know that General Cocke’s diary includes other rather negative references to Thomas Jefferson, possibly suggesting a bit of jealousy on his part that the former President had received too much of the credit for their shared enterprise, or just displeasure at Jefferson’s greater fame and accomplishments in life. For example, when the Virginia House of Delegates resisted Jefferson’s request for more money for his new University, General Cocke—to whom Jefferson had entrusted the business of approaching the legislature for the additional funding—wrote, “The temper of the House ought to be an admonition to the ‘Old Sachem’ that the State has had enough of his buildings.”24

  Similarly, on September 19, 1836, General Cocke wrote in his diary that he had “commenced taking off Roof of the House to be replaced by a new one to get rid of the evils of flat roofing and spouts and gutters, or in other words to supersede the Jeffersonian by the common sense plan.”25 (In 1820, Cocke had moved into his mansion that had been constructed following Jefferson’s recommendations regarding the roof.26 ) While such entries do not suggest that Jefferson and Cocke were “enemies,” they also do not suggest the warm friendship and admiration that would make it remarkable for General Cocke to embrace the rumors about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.

  Other contemporary sources suggest that General Cocke’s ultimate hostility toward Jefferson may have had political roots. In the spring of 1840, Cocke reportedly told Lucius Manlius Sargent that Jefferson deserved much of the blame for the injuries done to George Washington’s reputation in the south.27 Whatever the degree of his hostility toward Thomas Jefferson and the source or sources of his information, the important observation is that there is no reason to believe that John Hartwell Cocke had first-hand knowledge about any possible sexual relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.

  Furthermore, Cocke’s knowledge of Jefferson or Monticello did not come close to that possessed by many of the people who dismissed the allegations (such as Madison, Bacon, or family members). General Cocke’s cryptic diary entries provide not the slightest hint that these comments were based upon anything more than Callender’s allegations or rumor. There is no suggestion that he ever witnessed or overhead anything at Monticello or elsewhere that might have given him some relevant and personal knowledge about the facts in this dispute. Under the circumstances, the probative value of his testimony is limited at best.

  In addition to John Hartwell Cocke, the Monticello Report correctly notes that, “beyond the circle of family and acquaintances,” there were people who believed the story. Thus, they note that, during and after the presidential campaign of 1800, “Federalist newspapers hinted at a relationship between President Jefferson and a slave.”28 If the partisan rantings of Federalist editors—most of whom had probably never come within fifty miles of Monticello—are to be accepted as “evidence” of the truth, then Thomas Jefferson must also presumably be found guilty of being “an atheist” and a “French infidel,”29 to mention but two of their frequent charges against him.

  Thomas Gibbons

  A similar response applies to the allegations of Jefferson’s Federalist opponent Thomas Gibbons, who in an 1802 letter from his home in Georgia confirmed “as correct as truth itself” that Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings’ children (admitting he had never actually seen any of them). This is almost as persuasive as interviewing at random a resident of Georgia who had no knowledge of the facts beyond Callender’s charges but who was not a known political enemy of Thomas Jefferson. Gibbons does not appear to have ever been near Monticello, but he had every reason to be resentful of Thomas Jefferson—who was not only the political leader of the Republicans who had thrown the Federalists out of power, but had personally blocked Gibbons’ “midnight appointment” as a federal judge by John Adams in the constitutional dispute that led to the famous Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison.30

  A reading of the entire Gibbons letter reveals it to be bigoted drivel. He spends several paragraphs denouncing all Virginians (who, inter alia, he alleged were “more ignorant of Government and finance than of Theology, if it be possible”), refers to the children of Sally Hemings (he admits he had never seen) as being “flat nosed, thick lipped and Tawney,” and then attacked the governor of Virginia (“a Miserable creature”).31 Surely it tells us something that the revisionists are reduced to such authority in trying to make their case.

  Elijah P. Fletcher

  Next, as more of this alleged “evidence” that the paternity was widely accepted as factual by Jefferson’s friends and neighbors, we are offered the testimony of Elijah P. Fletcher, a Vermont schoolteacher who rode through Charlottesville on his way to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he later became the mayor. In the words of the Monticello Report: “Passing through Charlottesville, Fletcher talked to members of both political parties, who told ‘many anecdotes much to [Jefferson’s] disgrace.’ He gained the impression that ‘the story of Black Sal is no farce—that he cohabits with her and has a number of children by her is a sacred truth.’”32 Coming from New England, where, according to one source, “half the clergy”33 engaged in anti-Jefferson attacks during the campaign of 1800, it is not surprising that when he entered Charlottesville, Fletcher would have been susceptible to accepting the local gossip as “sacred truth.”

  But there is, in fact, more to the story. To put this source in a bit more context, it needs to be understood that Fletcher happened to have shared the stage from Washington, D.C., to Charlottesville, with John Kelly—a strong Federalist and one of Thomas Jefferson’s most bitter critics in Charlottesville.34 When they arrived in Charlottesville, Kelly took Fletcher around to speak with other local critics of the former President. Kelly’s personal hatred for Jefferson was so great that, upon learning Jefferson was involved in the project, he refused to sell the plot of land on which Jefferson originally wanted to build the University of Virginia, exclaiming, “I will see him at the devil before he shall have it at any price.”35 From Kelly and his anti-Jefferson friends, Fletcher divined his “sacred truth.”36

  Consider these excerpts from a letter Fletcher wrote on May 24, 1811:

  Thursday, May 2nd, I bade my scholars farewell at Ale[xandria] and on Friday morning 3d. entered the stage coach in company with 3 Virginia gentlemen. …We arrived …at Char[lottesville], a village of about 400 houses, courthouse, and good taverns. Mr. Kelly, the only remaining fellow traveler, left me here, as he resided in town. Gave me a polite invitation to call [and?] spend some time with him. …

  Wednesday 8th I started again for Monticello. Mr. Kelly, when I got to Char., went with me. …We rode up to the front gate of the door yard, a servant took our horses, Mr. Jefferson appeared at the door. I was introduced to him and shook hands with him very cordially. …37

  Presumably, Thomas Jefferson did not spend the visit trying to persuade his guests of his own shortcomings. Although Fletcher does not provide the details (beyond disclosing that his tour guide in Charlottesville was “Mr. Kelly”), he does provide a summary of what he “learnt” while visiting Charlottesville:

  I learnt [Jefferson] was but little esteemed by his neighbors. Republicans as well as Federalists in his own County dislike him and tell many anecdotes much to his disgrace. I confess I never had a very exalted opinion of his moral conduct, but from the information I gained of his neighbors who must best know him, I have a much poorer one. The story of black Sal is no farce. That he cohabits with her and has a number of children by her is a sacred truth. …38

  In context, this is not particularly powerful evidence of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship. Fletcher entered the scene with a low opinion of Jefferson based upon rumors he had accepted as fact in New England. His testimony seems to be little more that hearsay accounts based on the views of John Kelly and Kelly’s anti-Jefferson friends. It is again a reflection of the paucity of their case that the revisionists have resorted to proffering such “evidence.”

  This is not to deny that Thomas Jefferson had critics
in Charlottesville, even among his neighbors. Many highly successful people are resented by some of their neighbors. While the Monticello Report cites only John Hartwell Cocke and Israel Jefferson (whose problematic statement was addressed in Chapter Four) in support of its allegation that “[n]umerous sources document the prevailing belief in the neighborhood of Monticello that Jefferson had children by Sally Hemings,”39 it is not to be doubted that others may have assumed the allegations to be true as well. It was, after all, well known that there were light-skinned slave children at Monticello, and it was also well known that miscegenation between master and slave was not uncommon on Virginia plantations. Add even a small measure of envy and it is easy to see how some in the community might have found much satisfaction in the belief that their more prominent neighbor up on the mountain was less perfect than he appeared.

  In reality, Thomas Jefferson was so busy with national and international affairs that he barely knew many of his neighbors in Albemarle County. When his sister Anna Scott Jefferson married Hastings Marks in 1788, Jefferson wrote her from his post in Paris: “Though Mr. Marks was long my neighbor, eternal occupations in business prevented my having a particular acquaintance with him, as it prevented me from knowing more of my other neighbors. … ”40 A sense of having been ignored by their famous neighbor might contribute further to the normal tendencies of human beings to be envious of those around them who have achieved great prominence, just as the lack of direct knowledge might make them more likely to assume critical facts alleged by others were true.

  But it is important to keep such criticism in perspective. There is not the slightest evidence that all or even most of Thomas Jefferson’s neighbors were hostile to him or believed the Federalist charges, and indeed his reputation for kindness and generosity to all around him is well established.41 Professor Gordon-Reed notes that mid-nineteenth-century historian Henry Randall stated that Callender had received information from “Jefferson’s neighbors,”42 adding, “Because those who lived in the neighborhood of Monticello probably were not all members of the Federalist party, it is likely that some of the talk arose out of the human need to gossip. … ”43 She seems to be implying that “all” of Jefferson’s neighbors told Callender they believed Thomas Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings’ children—a suggestion for which there is not the slightest bit of evidence. Callender was not engaged in a search for the truth; he was looking for ammunition to use to attack Thomas Jefferson. All he needed was a single source to tell him of the existence of mulatto children at Monticello and provide a few details like names, and he was primed to go to work.

  We have no public opinion polls from the era to rely upon in assessing the views of Thomas Jefferson’s neighbors, and the passage of time precludes such research at this date. However, it is worth noting that when, after visiting Charlottesville and encountering some Jefferson critics, an Episcopal clergyman wrote in the Episcopal Recorder (Philadelphia) in 1840 that “Jefferson’s character was held in aversion in the neighborhood in which he lived and died,”44 the statement outraged even the editor of the Charlottesville Whig Party newspaper. (As a leading opponent of the political party Jefferson had founded, he may have wished to make it clear that he and his fellow Whigs were not responsible for the allegations against the popular local hero.45) This led to a public meeting on July 18, 1840, at which the “citizens of Albemarle” adopted a resolution denouncing the article in the Episcopal Recorder and disavowing its charges against “their illustrious countryman.”46 In response, the author of the article that occasioned the meeting wrote a letter emphasizing that he was “convinced” that the allegations voiced against Mr. Jefferson “were not true.”47

  Were there people in Albemarle County who alleged that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings? Of course there were; there were people as far away as Great Britain who alleged that Jefferson “was the father of children by almost all of his numerous gang of female slaves. … ”48 Is this serious “evidence” of anything of relevance to this inquiry? Hardly. The fact that such information is even mentioned may primarily serve to remind us of the scarcity of serious evidence in support of Jefferson’s paternity. And to allege, as the Monticello Report does, that there was a “prevailing belief” in the Monticello neighborhood that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings is preposterous.

  Verdict of the American People

  It is sometimes said that we occasionally “miss the forest” by focusing on the trees. The Callender stories were not limited to Virginia, but were spread across America by Jefferson’s Federalist political enemies. Callender believed that his efforts would destroy Thomas Jefferson politically, and had the American people believed him that might well have happened.

  Indeed, as his first term came to an end, Thomas Jefferson gave serious consideration to retiring to the tranquility of his beautiful Monticello. Among the considerations that led him to run for a second term was his desire to submit his character to the judgment of his fellow citizens, thinking that in so doing he would effectively answer his critics in Europe and around the nation. On July 18, 1804, writing to his friend Philip Mazzei, President Jefferson explained:

  I should have retired at the end of the first four years, but that the immense load of Tory calumnies which have been manufactured respecting me, and have filled the European market, have obliged me to appeal once more to my country for justification. I have no fear but that I shall receive honorable testimony by their verdict on these calumnies. At the end of the next four years I shall certainly retire. Age, inclination, and principle all dictate this.49

  Thomas Jefferson ran for President three times. In 1796 he lost by a narrow margin (68–71 electoral votes—the popular vote was not recorded) to John Adams. Four years later, Jefferson and Aaron Burr each received 73 electoral votes, Adams received 65, and after thirty-six ballots the House of Representatives broke the tie and elected Thomas Jefferson our third President. Two years later, James Callender unleashed his fury against the President, writing: “I do not believe that at the next election of 1804 Jefferson could obtain two votes on the Eastern side of the Susquehanna; and, I think hardly four votes upon this side of it. He will, therefore, be laid aside.”50 In reality, in the election of 1804 Jefferson defeated Federalist Charles Pinckney by a margin of nearly twelve-to-one (162 electoral votes to 14).

  The election of 1804 was not a public opinion poll on the credibility of the Sally Hemings story for American voters. But it was, in part, an opportunity for the American voters to pass judgment on the character and performance of Thomas Jefferson. Callender thought his attacks would finish Jefferson politically, and the election is certainly relevant in assessing the public reaction. If we cannot say with confidence that the landslide of 1804 constituted an explicit rejection of the Callender charges, it is at least clear that the voters did not respond to his attacks as he predicted and that Thomas Jefferson remained a very popular leader.

  Why Jefferson Never Publicly Denied

  the Callender Charges

  It is also argued that if Thomas Jefferson had not been sexually involved with Sally Hemings, he could easily have issued a public denial.51 His silence thus serves to confirm for many revisionists the truth of the allegations. But this analysis overlooks a Jefferson practice of ignoring criticism that predated the Sally Hemings charges—a practice that Professor Ellis attributes to the fact that Jefferson “was by nature thin-skinned and took all criticism personally.”52

  Thomas Paine explained Jefferson’s public silence on this and other Callender charges in a different way: “It is, perhaps, a bold sentiment but it is a true one, that a just man, when attacked, should not defend himself. His conduct will do it for him, and Time will put his detractors under his feet.”53

  Five years before Callender published his allegations about Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Jefferson wrote to Alexander White:

  So many persons have of late found an interest or a passion gratified by imputing to me
sayings and writings which I never said or wrote, or by endeavoring to draw me into newspapers to harass me personally, that I have found it necessary for my quiet & my other pursuits to leave them in full possession of the field, and not to take the trouble of contradicting them in private conversation.54

  In her 1871 book, The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson, Sarah N. Randolph (Jefferson’s great-granddaughter) explained:

  During the political campaign of the summer of 1800, Jefferson was denounced by many divines—who thought it their duty to preach politics instead of Christian charity—as an atheist and a French infidel. These attacks were made upon him by half the clergy of New England, and by a few in other Northern States; in the former section, however, they were most virulent. The common people of the country were told that should he be elected their Bibles would be taken from them.55

  Jefferson’s reaction to these attacks was reflected in private letters he wrote to friends and supporters during the era. For example, in a May 26, 1800, letter to James Monroe, Jefferson stated:

  As to the calumny of Atheism, I am so broken to calumnies of every kind, from every department of government, Executive, Legislative, & Judiciary, & from every minion of theirs holding office or seeking it, that I entirely disregard it, and from Chace it will have less effect than from any other man in the United States. It has been so impossible to contradict all their lies, that I have determined to contradict none; for while I should be engaged with one, they would publish twenty new ones. Thirty years of public life have enabled most of those who read newspapers to judge of one for themselves.56