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1) The treatment of the story well into modern times is evidence of the continuing grip that the doctrine of white supremacy has on American society. The historiography displays carelessness with the lives of enslaved men and women, disrespect for the sensibilities of their descendants, and a concomitant willingness to safeguard the interests of those who held blacks in bondage -- sometimes at the cost of all reason. The picture that emerged from this, for me, revealed the ways in which our distorted racial values, set down in the time of slavery, promote and protect error, irrationality, and unfairness. As if we had fallen through the looking glass, the chief purveyors of the distortion presented themselves, and we accepted, as models of accuracy, rationality, and fairness.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings viii
2) "Oral tradition is not established fact." So what is the source of the idea that Samuel Carr and Peter Carr were the fathers of Sally Hemings's children? The oral tradition of the Jefferson-Randolph family.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 79
3) In other words, it was [Merrell] Peterson's view of Jefferson's character that constituted the "overwhelming evidence" that the story was not true.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 82
4) One cannot be careless in the analysis and assessment of evidence offered by one side and extra careful when assessing the evidence from the other. This way of proceeding is not designed to help reach a better understanding of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings the truth; it is, instead, designed to protect a particular image of the truth.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 103
5) One could just as easily look to other aspects of Jefferson's activities and tastes to come to an opposite conclusion. He was a physical man, riding horses some great number of miles a day, gaining his slave artisans' admiration for his ability to make metal tools, pitting himself against much younger men in competitions designed to test strength and sometimes winning. Jefferson was also a man oriented to the senses. He had a stated appreciation for beauty in women, music, and art. He loved good food and good wine. Even if individual character traits were reliable indicators of a person's level of sexual passion (a claim that requires the employment of stereotypes and extremely subjective judgments), it would be wrong to seize upon some aspects of Jefferson's character to draw inferences about the likely state of his sexual drive to the exclusion of other aspects.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 121
6) He is to be forgiven for not using his presidency to make a more forceful stand against slavery because he was a hostage to his times and his way of life and even if he was a slave master, he exercised that power in a fashion that reflected his basic sense of humanity.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 138
7) Love between a man and a woman is different because the union of men and women of different races creates a mingled bloodline that conflicts with the notion that blacks and whites must be kept separate to some degree.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 167
8) Finally, there may also have been things about Sally Hemings that were reminiscent of Martha Jefferson. The southern slave system was strong but not strong enough to obliterate the laws of biology. Sisters often resemble each other in many ways -- physical appearance, mannerisms, and timbre and tone of voice. Jefferson, despite his affair with Maria Cosway, may not have let go of his dead wife and could have been moved by similarities between the two women to take an action that he might not otherwise have taken.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 191
9) [Douglass] Adair said that Sally Hemings could tell Madison that Jefferson promised to free all of her children at age twenty-one because she knew that this was Jefferson's plan for all Hemings males, not just her sons. . . . To Adair these indentures were significant for three reasons. First, he said, they reveal Jefferson's policy of freeing Hemings males if they chose it. Second, the indenture freeing James Hemings was "probably the basis of the twisted story Sally told her children about the supposed contract Jefferson made with her in Paris." . . . Third, because the freed James Hemings was established in Philadelphia, Jefferson felt comfortable violating his rule against freeing women and sent Harriet Hemings when she was of age to join him.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 201-2
10) We are in a unique position. "Passionless'"science has stepped in to help solve a controversy that history and politics -- driven by human passion -- would not allow to be resolved by normal means. Let me be clear. There is currently no reasonable basis for doubting Madison Hemings's story about his life at Monticello.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings xi
11) The chief qualifications that the Carr brothers have for this designation are (1) neither one of them was Thomas Jefferson, (2) neither seems to have been a very good guy, so that that they can be cast as having engaged in miscegenation, and (3) neither man means anything to the American public. Because the Carrs possess these characteristics, broad and categorical statements have been made about them are without adequate foundation.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 78
12) The period of Hemings's childbearing roughly spans Jefferson's years as a public servant in the national government as secretary of state, vice president, and president. During that time he went back and forth from Philadelphia, and then Washington, to Monticello. We know from [Dumas] Malone's chronology of the events in Jefferson's life that he was present at Monticello at least nine months before the birth of each one of Sally Hemings's children, even the one that was most recently discovered.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 100
13) Did Thomas Jefferson, and other men and women of the eighteenth century, think of teenaged girls in the same way that we think of them today?
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 112
14) There can be no question that Thomas Jefferson was deeply and profoundly racist.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 134
15) According to [Douglass] Adair, "Sally, however, asks us to believe that the author of the 'Dialogue between his Head and his Heart,' one of the most sensitive and revealing love letters in the English language, would turn his back on the delectable Cosway, to whom it was addressed, to seduce a markedly immature, semi-educated, teen-age virgin, who stood in a peculiarly dependent personal relationship to him, both a slave, and as half-sister to his dead wife, and as the companion and almost sister to his young daughters." Much stranger things in the world have happened, and happen every day of the week. Moreover, Adair's list of adjectives for Sally Hemings stack the deck. One could alternatively describe her as being nubile and beautiful, standing in relation to Jefferson as Galatea stood to Pygmalion, and a reminder of the young wife who he dearly loved and lost, and a person who liked and was liked by his daughters. She was all of these things, and with this rendering of her the whole conception of the relationship and the possibility is transformed.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 186
16) In the most fundamental sense, the enterprise of defense has had little to do with expanding people's knowledge of Thomas Jefferson or the other participants in this story. The goal has been quite the opposite, to constrict knowledge as a way of controlling the allowable discourse on this topic.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 224
17) The failure to look more closely into the identities of the parties involved, the too ready acceptance and active promotion of the Carr brothers story, the reliance upon stereotypes in the place of investigation and analysis, all indicate that most Jefferson scholars decided from the outset that this story was not true and that if they had anything to do with it, no one would come to think otherwise.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 224
18) Of course, at this time, whether Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had a sexual liaison is, not a legal, but a historical question. The principles that demand a consistent standard for assessing evidence should apply, nevertheless. That consistency has been utterly lacking in the scholarly writing on this question, and that is cause for concern. It is possible, by examining the reactions to this story, to see the ways in which black people have been treated as lumps of clay to be fashioned and molded into whatever image the given historian feels is necessary to make his point. This, in my view, is the real scandal of this whole story.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings xxi
19) Madison Hemings's race and previous condition of servitude put him at a distinct disadvantage in a contest between his word and those of Jefferson's grandchildren. His status gave historians license to attribute base motivations and bad character to him.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 95
20) This view is premised on the belief that while Jefferson had a great capacity for platonic love, he had no strong interest in expressing love in a romantic or sexual way.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 120
21) If one does not believe that any of Jefferson's documents have been tampered with, one might say that the lack of references to Sally Hemings, during his stay in France and later, shows that she was of no particular significance to him. Modern day commentators have taking this tack, citing Hemings's absence from Jefferson's correspondence as a strong indication that the two were intimately involved. . . . There might have been a sense that the liaison should be kept secret, and the best method of doing so would have been to refrain from drawing any attention to the alleged mistress. The need for circumspection about such a relationship would only have grown if the alleged liaison between the man and the mistress had become the subject of intense public scrutiny, scorn and ridicule.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 177
22) The world of the antebellum southern planter was not the world of the late twentieth-century bourgeoisie. There is no way to assess the capabilities, beliefs, and professed moral standards of the individuals who lived in that society without keeping that in mind.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 117
23) What I hope is not lost in all the focus on DNA is the original message of this book: the treatment of Jefferson and Hemings reveals the contingent nature of blacks' participation in shaping the accepted verities of American life. Jefferson with a slave mistress and children was a concept that those entrusted with the power to shape "the truth" of American history found too inconvenient for their aims. In the fact of their discomfort with this truth, the Hemings family had to yield its identity and integrity. To an all too significant degree, this has been the story of black life in the United States. As particularly painful as this is for black Americans, it should be noted that it has hurt all Americans. We are the poorer for the failure to come to grips with this story.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings xiii
24) It is not significant that one or both of the Carr brothers was at Monticello at some point during the years that Hemings gave birth. The question is whether they were there during the months that she likely conceived.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 99
25) He [Jefferson] had a stated appreciation for beauty in women, music, and art. He loved good food and good wine. Even if individual character traits were reliable indicators of a person's level of sexual passion (a claim that requires the employment of stereotypes and extremely subjective judgments), it would be wrong to seize upon some aspects of Jefferson's character to draw inferences about the likely state of his sexual drive to the exclusion of other aspects. Malone described Jefferson as "six men rolled into one." While one of those men may have been Jefferson the cerebral engineer (a specimen who hardly qualifies for presumptive asexuality), another of them was most certainly Jefferson the sybarite.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 121
26) [Garry] Wills' assertions about Sally Hemings are particularly troubling because he filled the gaping hole in his analysis -- the lack of evidence to support his claim -- with the most common stereotype of black women; that they are all prone to being whores. Brodie had to offer specific evidence that the Jefferson-Hemings relationship was based upon affection, even though a thirty-eight-year relationship between a man and a woman should be presumed to suggest feelings beyond mere hedonism. On the other hand, no specific evidence was required to prove that Sally Hemings was like a prostitute.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings171
27) It is my belief that those who are considered Jefferson scholars have never made a serious and objective attempt to get at the truth of this matter. This is not a criticism of their work on any other aspect of Thomas Jefferson's life or any other subject about which they have written. Indeed, it is because of the impressive work of some of these scholars that journalists and other members of the public have given them the presumption of expertise and believability on this matter. That presumption can no longer be sustained.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 224
28) In what universe could the humanity, family integrity, and honor of slave owners count for more than the humanity, family integrity, and honor of the slaves? We know one answer to this because that universe existed on the American continent for over two and a half centuries. . . . Sally Hemings and her children may have meant nothing to most white Virginians of their day; we are not required to act as if they mean nothing to us. In fact, we are in a very good position to calibrate the balance of competing interests that existed during that morally compromising era.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings ix
29) Martha [Jefferson's daughter] was an elderly woman at this point [when she told her children Jefferson was not present when Sally conceived], and perhaps her memory of specific events so far in the past was unclear; she either made a mistake or lied. T.J. Randolph was a child himself during the years that Sally Hemings was giving birth to her children, so that he may not have known firsthand whether his grandfather was at Monticello during the relevant time period.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 80
30) When read in its entirety, [Elizabeth Randolph] Coolidge's letter has the sound of a statement for posterity rather than a true effort to impart information to an intimate contemporary correspondent. It seems to have been written with an extreme amount of self-consciousness to be used exactly as it has been used: to provide a defense of Jefferson from a member of his own family.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 89
31) As particularly painful as this is for black Americans, it should be noted that it has hurt all Americans. We are poorer for the failure to come to grips with this story. We know significantly less about Jefferson, life at Monticello, and the Hemings family than we could have known if scholars from the time of Parton and Randall had been open to the truth that the humanity of the Hemings family was important. That they did not see this, and that others who wrote afterward well into the end of the twentieth century did not notice their particular form of blindness, speaks volumes about how much still has to be done.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings xiii
32) It should be what the declarants say, how they say it, and the amount of extrinsic evidence that exists to support their statement that counts, not their status, family background, or race.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 103
33) Why, on the other hand, does the idea that Jefferson, widowed at thirty-eight and sworn to a promise not to remarry, might have taken a slave mistress appear so awful that it denotes a lack of love for his family? . . . The strongest case to be made, however, is that neither Jefferson's handling of his finances nor his alleged liaison with Sally Hemings can be taken as a measure of his love for his family. Human beings are far to complex for such a simplistic calculus.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 133
34) [Garry] Wills did not offer any specific evidence to bolster the notion that Jefferson thought Sally Hemings was like a prostitute. The glimpse that Brodie offered into Jefferson's state of mind with respect to Hemings was his decisions to free her children and the possibility that he asked his daughter Martha to free Hemings after his death. These acts do not, on their face, suggest that Jefferson thought Hemings was a prostitute. What observers make of Jefferson's actions along these lines says more about the observers than about Jefferson. There are, in fact, levels of male-female attachment that exist between being a trick and her John and being the equivalent of Tristan and Iseult. One should ask whether the evidence suggests that Jefferson and Hemings could be placed somewhere in that middle ground closer to where Brodie chose to place them or whether they must be where Wills chose to place them.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 170
35) Consistency with respect to assessing evidence is one of the hallmarks of fair consideration of any dispute because, in the long run, it is the most effective way to ensure that the truth of the matter will out.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings xvii
36) The truth is that Thomas Jefferson can be cited to support almost any position on slavery and the race question that could exist.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 109
37) Both historians' defenses [Alf Rapp and Willard Sterne Randall] of Jefferson depend, in part, upon telling readers that to believe in the truth of the Hemings story is to believe that Thomas Jefferson had designs upon a prepubescent girl.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 111
38) In his own writings Jefferson managed, as very private people often do, to impart a great deal of personal information without being particularly informative.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 126
39) If a woman who was a slave could love her child who was her future master for all the reasons that women love children, why could not a woman who was a slave love her present master for all the reasons that women love men?
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 166-67
40) [Douglass] Adair tried to sidestep this inconsistency in his theory by stating firmly, with no evidence, that Jefferson freed Harriet Hemings because he was determined to break the cycle of miscegenation that had operated in her family for three generations. He then attempted to provide cover for the weakness of this claim by following it with a short, informative (though utterly beside the point) discourse on the fates of mulatto women who lived in New Orleans, as though this knowledge of this matter could shore up his supposition about the circumstances of Harriet Hemings's life.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 203
41) What has fascinated me over the years about this subject is the way the story has been discussed, particularly by those who deny it. That there are denials is neither surprising, nor interesting, nor--in the scheme of things--important. It is rather, the vehemence and the substance of those denials that interest me, because historians, journalists, and other Jefferson enthusiasts have in the past (and continue to do so today) shamelessly employed every stereotype of black people and distortion of life in the Old South to support their positions.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings xvii
42) The claim that Southern gentlemen saw and were able to maintain a clear demarcation between the types of exploitation involved in starting a sexual relationship with a slave and, say, making that slave work from sunrise to sundown for nothing or selling that slave's children must be viewed with some skepticism given the extent of violations of this item in the code of honor.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 108
43) The strongest case to be made, however, is that neither Jefferson's handling of his finances nor his alleged liaison with Sally Hemings can be taken as a measure of love for his family. Human beings are far too complex for such a simplistic calculus.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 133
44) In 1862 Edmund Bacon recalled Sally Hemings by name, telling stories about her trip to France. That she would be one of the few female slaves besides her daughter, Harriet, and in Bacon's case the only one, singled out for a special description in these memoirs gives an indication of the degree of her importance at Monticello.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 178
45) This book is a critique of the defense that has been mounted to counter the notion of a Jefferson-Hemings liason. It is not my goal to prove that the story is true or that it is false. I suspect that if that is ever done, it will be the result of the miracles of modern science and all the wonders of DNA research and not because of any interpretation of documents and statements. I, nevertheless, attempt in this book to present and analyze in as clear and strong a fashion as I am able the evidence that exists to support the story. This is necessary both for general interest and to show that my concerns about the nature of the response to the allegations are valid.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings xviii-xix
46) One might say that a particular mechanism for gaining pride is pathetic, but the wish itself? Substitute the name of any ethnic group in [Merrell] Peterson's formulation, and it is clear that no other people but blacks could be written of in so careless a manner.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 83
47) Why, on the other hand, does the idea that Jefferson, widowed at 38 and sworn to a promise not to remarry, might have taken a slave mistress appear so awful that it denotes a lack of love for his family? Because we are dealing in the realm of value judgments, the response depends upon one's perspective. If one's horror at the thought of miscegenation and fornication outweighs one's horror at the thought of a person allowing his family to slide into financial ruin and onto public charity, then the answer is clear.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 133
48) The underlying theme of most historians' denial of the truth of a liaison between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings is that the whole story is too impossible to believe. This line of argument is troubling. For in order to sustain the claim of impossibility, or even to discuss the matter in those terms, one has to make Thomas Jefferon so high as to have been something more than human and one has to make Sally Hemings so low as to have been something less than human. It is the latter part of the equation that has prompted me to write this book.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings xviii
49) If Jefferson did suggest the Randolph names for Hemings's children and if he was their father, it might offer a degree of insight into the nature of his relationship with her. It would suggest that he did not view Sally Hemings as a prostitute. Would a man who had children with a prostitute name those children for an illustrious relative, two close cousins, and his closest friend? It seems particularly unlikely that he would do this when the latter three people were frequent visitors to his home and would have learned of his choice. Giving the names of these valued individuals to children from such a union would be an insult rather than a tribute.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 201
50) Historians often write as though Jefferson and the Randolphs had no life outside of what appears in their letters.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 177
51) It is not my intention in examining this question to attack Thomas Jefferson. He has been, since I was nine years old, a continuing item of fascination to me -- magnificent and horrifying. Even as I recoil at some of his ideas and practices, I admire his intellect, his industry, and the legacy that has been important to all Americans. My goal is to consider the manner in which scholars and other commentators have dealt with one particular area of Jefferson's life story that seems to have given them great problems.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings xxi
52) The difference is that substantially more extrinsic evidence exists to support Madison Hemings's oral history than exists to support the oral history presented by Randolph and Coolidge.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 96
53) Jefferson, as is common among those who are racist, also had his exceptions among blacks. He knew well and liked the Scotts, a family of black musicians whom he hired to play at his daughter Martha's wedding and whose children he suggested should be sent to the local white school in Charlottesville. . . . Because Jefferson liked the family personally and had something in common with them--the love of music and the violin--the Scott children were good enough to go to school with white children.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 138-39
54) Except for his oldest daughter, Martha, Sally Hemings was the only individual in Thomas Jefferson's circle who shared with him intimate memories of two defining periods in his personal life: his years with his wife, especially the months leading up to and after her death, and his experiences in France.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 191
55) Why would Sally Hemings even have wanted Jefferson to free her in his will if she had assurances that she would be freed by Martha Randolph and allowed to leave Monticello under protection of her two youngest sons when they became free men? Jefferson's freeing of Hemings himself would have caused problems far greater than any psychic reward she could have gotten from such an action after thirty-eight years.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 209
56) Consider the difference between the nature of evidence and the nature of proof. Evidence goes toward establishing proof. By way of analogy, evidence can be described as the bricks that go into making up a wall of proof. Some scholars and commentators, who almost invariably approach the subject of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings in a defensive posture, have demanded that every brick of evidence that the two might have had a relationship amount to its own individual wall of proof. If the item of evidence offered does not itself add up to proof, they deem it to be "no evidence," or alternatively, never mention it at all. Demanding that individual items of evidence amount to proof sets a standard that can only be met in the rarest of circumstances, either in history or in the law. There are, no doubt, many things that have been designated historical truths on the basis of far less evidence than exists on this matter.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings xix
57) An interesting feature of the Randolph family defense of Jefferson is that each member of the family who spoke about the Hemings allegation had a different reason for why it could not be true. Consider the ambiguities that their different answers, particularly the grandchildren's, raise. In one of their versions, Peter Carr is the father of the Hemings children. In another, Samuel Carr is the father. In one recounting, Samuel and Peter Carr break down and cry when considering this subject. In another version Peter Carr laughs about the situation. To one person Randolph said that he was alone when he confronted the brothers and they confessed. To another person, Randolph said that he and a companion overheard one of the brothers admit responsibility. Even if we do not choose to think the Randolphs would lie, we still must be concerned about the contradictory nature of their statements. At a minimum, we can say that neither T.J. Randolph nor Ellen Coolidge knew who fathered Sally Hemings's children. If they did not know whether it was Samuel or Peter Carr, they may not have known whether it was Samuel Carr, Peter Carr, or Thomas Jefferson.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 94
58) One wonders why people writing in the twentieth century view this scenario with such disgust. After all, if this is what happened, it is not the depiction of deviance and depravity that James Callender was making it out to be. If Brodie was correct, this was, rather, the tragic story of people trapped by the circumstances of their times into doing the best that they could do, a scenario that played itself out in households across the Old South. For no matter how strenuously some may resist believing it, there were slave masters who had long liaisons with slave mistresses and who freed the children from these unions and the mistress as well.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 114
59) Thomas Jefferson was a genius, but there is no reason to believe that his genius made the character, depth, and nature of his love for his family any greater than those of a person of more modest capabilities. Nor can we assume that his family's love for him was so shallow that it could only be sustained if he remained a picture of perfection in their eyes.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 128
60) The ultimate truth or falsity of the Jefferson-Hemings story would not change my view of the way some scholars and commentators have mishandled their consideration of it and mistreated black people in the process. I cannot say that I definitely believe the story is true, but I can say that I believe that it is not the open-and-shut case that those bent on "defending" Thomas Jefferson at all cost would have the public think. I hope both to demonstrate this, and, even more importantly, to reveal the corrosive nature of the enterprise of defense.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings xxi-xxii
61) When viewed objectively, it seems as though this trio -- Randolph, Randall, and Coolidge -- were saying things to build a case, rather than just recounting a story.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 89
62) The fact that Jefferson freed Hemings's children and the ways in which he did it might lead in any age to an inference that he cared something for her.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 115
63) Sally Hemings, who had been entrusted with an assignment and had succeeded in carrying out that assignment, was now living in an opulent residence, learning a new language (either formally or informally) and a new set of customs. . . . There probably was not much work for Sally Hemings to do during her stay in France. Martha and Mary were boarding at school. Jefferson had been in Paris for three years, and the residence already had a staff of servants.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 163
64) Sally Hemings's absence from the will has been cited as proof that she was not his mistress. This is another example of the failure to think seriously about the context in which these events were unfolding. It is by no means obvious that Jefferson, if he had wanted Sally Hemings to be free, would have sought to accomplish this by putting her in his will with her two sons. Whatever impression his freeing of Madison and Eston might have created, formally freeing Sally Hemings upon his death would have been taken as an even more certain admission of their relationship.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 206-7
65) What are black people, or any people for that matter, to make of this: that the words of whites carry more weight than the words of blacks and do not have to be subjected to rigorous scrutiny, or that the words of formerly wealthy aristocrats carry more weight than those of former slaves?
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 97
66) Child molestation is not judged by the age of the adult who is said to engage in it, it is judged by the age of the child. If the forty-four-year-old Thomas Jefferson could be characterized as something on the order of a child molester for having allegedly started a relationship with a female who was either fifteen or sixteen, then one must also question the activities of his friend the adult James Madison who courted a female of the same age.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 112
67) The third prong of the character defense purports to debunk the Jefferson-Hemings liaison by citing Jefferson's love for his children and grandchildren as having been too great to have allowed for such involvement. The first thing to observe about this assertion is that it is not a fact in the sense that Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States or that he was the founder of the University of Virginia could be considered facts. It is a value judgment. A person making this assertion is revealing his or her own values more than Thomas Jefferson's.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 127
68) Telling the Sally Hemings story as a historical novel blunted the edge of any criticism that a historian could level at the book in terms of factual accuracy. As long as Chase-Riboud stayed within certain parameters -- not casting Jefferson as the king of Spain for example -- she had the freedom to do what had not been done before: to present, without hesitation or qualification, a version of how the story could have been true.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 181
69) The relationship [between Jefferson's presence at Monticello and Sally's conceptions] was so strong that it can be described as creating a pattern. The pattern went like this: Jefferson comes home for six months and leaves. Hemings bears a child four months after he is gone. Jefferson comes home for six weeks. Hemings bears a child eight months after he is gone. Jefferson comes home for two months and leaves. Hemings bears a child eight months after he is gone. This went on for fifteen years through six children. He was there when she conceived, and she never conceived when he was not there.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 101
70) We are seeing this, [slavery], through the eyes of a society solidly rooted in modern bourgeois value and sensibilities, where our more equalized vision of relationships between men and women and parents and children would militate against such behavior. This is presentism of the highest order. There are so many things about a society built upon slavery that are difficult for us to reconcile or imagine. The accommodations that had to be made -- the mode of thinking that people had to adopt in order to keep the system going -- often pass all understanding: Blacks are dirty and subhuman, but I will put my infant child to the breast of a black woman. Black men are infantile, but they are sexual predators who must be kept away from our women. Black women are animals, but I will have sex with them.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 117
71) There are racists, and there are racists. There are, in fact, white people who are racists and who are at the same time basically decent people. That is to say, they are people who are not naturally hateful but who have been captured by the customs, thinking, and mores of the society in which they live. Even though their racism can go to the very marrow, under the right circumstances the basic decency of such people allows them to see the humanity of an individual black person.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 137
72) Making notations about Sally Hemings in records of clothing bought and doctor's bills paid would be different from references to her in letters to his family. Jefferson made quotidian listings about slaves all the time. Mentioning a slave in a letter is a more important indication of Jefferson's level of involvement with that person. . . . If Jefferson wrote letters to his daughters during his second trip through Europe and made even the most mundane references to Sally Hemings, it would show that she was on his mind to some degree.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 176
73) In Jefferson's case it is by no means obvious that a man who owned people, bought and sold them, gave them away as wedding presents, and impressed them into the armed services to put themselves at risk in a war for other people's freedom would believe that having sex with one of the people so used would amount to overreaching so great as to be beyond his contemplation. His contradictory statements about the nature of freedom and slavery and of black people suggest that his ability to draw absolute lines on these matters was not as refined as some would allege.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 108
74) Ultimately, this argument against the notion of a Jefferson-Hemings liason is problematic, not only because it distorts Jefferson's views about the appropriateness of sexual relations with fifteen-year-olds . . . but because it gives readers an incorrect impression of eighteenth-century standards and practices. Females of Hemings's age at the time of her stay in France were thought eligible for relationships with men.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 113
75) It is common for people whose hearts are deeply committed to something to see the matter as one of the head and, on other occasions, to take calculated (headlike) actions and then convince themselves that those acts arose from sincere feelings (their hearts).
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76) It is okay for Mammy to love a child and for the child to love Mammy in return. This type of bonding could exist openly and be celebrated in song and literature without threat to the idea that blacks and whites must exist separately and that this separation could be maintained through the imposition of rigid social structures or beliefs. No matter how much a white person loved Mammy and how much Mammy loved the white person, Mammy never became part of the white person's family by blood.
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77) The slave system was inherently coercive. Therefore, one could argue, every act of sex between a master and slave was the equivalent of non-consensual sex, in other words, rape.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 109
78) Jefferson, for all his understanding of and stated appreciation for democratic institutions, was a despot in his own realm. He may have been a benign despot, but he was a despot nevertheless. Women and children were cherished and indulged, friends were deeply appreciated, but in the final analysis they did not rule; he did.
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79) The pseudo-scientific racism in Jefferson's "Notes on the State of Virginia" and his statement that "amalgamation produces a degradation to which no one . . . can innocently consent" are said to settle the matter. How could a man who wrote such things engage in a sexual liaison with a black person? One might answer, the same way that a man who wrote the Declaration of Independence and various ringing indictments of slavery and who was forever railing against tyrants could hold people in bondage and act as a tyrant himself.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 134
80) Both Martha Jefferson and Sally Hemings were women who had lived their entire lives on plantations. Although they occupied different positions, they both knew what that way of life meant for women. . . . Jefferson valued the domestic woman whose purpose in life was to serve her husband.
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81) Do we really believe that over the entire course of slavery in the United States, no master and slave woman ever experienced a mutual sexual or emotional attachment to one another?
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 109
82) One could argue that Thomas Jefferson was not every slave master. But are we to consider Jefferson's capacity to love as greater than what we would expect from an average person just because he had the ability to express his love through his many elegantly written letters to his family? Thomas Jefferson was a genius, but there is no reason to believe that his genius made the character, depth, and nature of his love for his family any greater than those of a person of more modest capabilities.
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83) The horror is not at the thought of the defilement of Sally Hemings but at the thought of Thomas Jefferson defiling himself by lying with Sally Hemings. By doing so, Jefferson would have hurt himself and, by extension, other whites. That particular sin would be unforgivable.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 113
84) In truth, miscegenation was a prevalent and inevitable part of slavery.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 128
85) That Sally Hemings was chosen over the rest for what was, after all, a remarkable assignment [accompanying Polly to Paris] suggests that the people in the best position to judge her considered her worthy of it. We must remember that everything we know about the Hemings family suggests that they were intelligent, creative, and capable individuals.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 162
86) That Sally Hemings conceived no children during Jefferson's long absences from Monticello suggests monogamy on her part and also might suggest in any era that she felt something for him.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 115
87) After emancipation, whites who had used black women as wet nurses for their children, as cooks, housekeepers, and maids in the crowded living area of ordinary plantation houses, suddenly became unwilling to sit next to a black person on a park bench.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 136
88) Sally Hemings was also beautiful in a city where beauty was of extreme importance. If she was thought of as dashing at Monticello, there is no doubt that she would be made even more aware of her attributes in a city and a country whose inhabitants are notorious for expressing their appreciation for attractive women . . . a young woman in this situation could begin to think of herself differently. Or, in Sally Hemings's case, since she had led such a privileged existence up until that point, her new way of life probably confirmed what she may have thought of herself all along: that she was special.
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89) A major tragedy of slavery was that it ran counter to human nature and demanded that people try to suppress and deny the existence of feelings that are completely natural to human beings.
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90) All of these men would say that Jefferson did not free Hemings's children because of the influence of her, or their love. Malone, Adair, et al. would say that Jefferson did so because he loved his white wife, their aunt. Wills would say that he did so because he was just rewarding his prostitute, a cipher. With each of these conclusions, Jefferson remains a true white man -- impervious to the influence of blacks, in perpetual and total control of every aspect of his relationships with them.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 172
91) Few people, if any, always act in character or according to what others take to be their personality. Human beings do surprise one another, and we often think we know someone when we do not. This is particularly likely to be true if the person in question died well over a century before we were born.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 169-70
92) Put simply, the argument goes, Thomas Jefferson's head always ruled over his heart. This view of Jefferson has been useful to his worshippers and detractors alike. It allows worshippers of Jefferson to portray him as a man of supreme intellect, which can, of course, be seen as a good thing. Jefferson detractors can take that same belief and portray him as having been emotionally unbalanced; after all, what healthy person always does what his head tells him to do?
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 123
93) The strongest item of evidence cited to support the idea that Jefferson fathered those children is the fact that he freed them all. This fact is made more suggestive by Madison Hemings's claim that the plan to do so was set near the beginning of his parents' relationship. Douglass Adair attempted to deal with Jefferson's actions toward the Hemings children by saying that their grant of freedom was not as extraordinary as one might think.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 201
94) One could argue that it is useless to speculate about why Sally Hemings never sold anything to Jefferson and the Randolphs. However, it is important to consider this because people who had no idea about the record of these sales to Jefferson offered information about Hemings's status at Monticello that may well explain why the household was not involved. The kind of relationship they said that Hemings had with Jefferson would have made it unnecessary for her to sell anything to him and awkward to sell to him through his surrogates.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 197
95) People are forgiven many things in this life for being discreet. If Sally Hemings was his mistress, Thomas Jefferson's freeing of her in a document that would become a public record and petitioning the legislature to allow her to remain in the state would have been the very opposite of discretion. He would have been rubbing his violation of the ultimate taboo in the faces of white society.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 208
96) One wonders when reading this part of [Garry] Wills's review of how Sally Hemings's situation was different from that of any other slave woman who had a relationship with her master and benefitted from it. The answer, of course, is that there was no difference, other than the prominence of the man with whom Hemings was reputedly involved. If there was no difference, then all slave women who had liaisons and children with slave masters and derived some benefit from the relationship (which would include a good number of the female forebears of black Americans) would fall into Wills's category of prostitutes or women who were like prostitutes.
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings 171
