| Episodes |
The Battle against Malone: Gordon-Reed Takes Gold [AGR 46-48]
Michelle Juarez
[1] Annette Gordon-Reed typifies the quintessential lawyerâ€"she states a claim, analyzes it, and ultimately deconstructs the claim, giving possible arguments against it. Gordon-Reed does this adeptly as well, as we can see in her award-winning, politically-exciting, breakthrough analysis, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. Gordon-Reed combines her writing skills with her lawyer-like prowess to provide objective and logical counterarguments to common Jefferson-Hemings defenses. In the "Dumas Malone Weighs the Evidence" section of the "Madison Hemings" chapter, for instance, Gordon-Reed challenges the logic of the unquestioned Jefferson expert of his day (46-48). In her battle against Malone, she disputes the improbability of the Jefferson-Hemings affair and specifically highlights the covert, yet still "preferential" treatment that Sally received, and that so many historians have overlooked.
[2] According to Gordon-Reed, most Jefferson defenders who have considered the key Madison Hemings' account on which the Jefferson-Hemings relationship is based "seem determined to treat it as something to be defeated rather than an idea that can be objectively considered." Because most "commentators" have "decided at the outset that they did not want it to be true," they have "filled in the blanks on Jefferson's life based upon their supposed knowledge of him" yet have been "hesitant to discuss his actions with respect to Sally Hemings" (46). The basis of Gordon-Reed's argument here is that most historians are guilty of predetermined biases that hinder them from viewing the topic in an objective manner. Yet, Gordon-Reed seems to be guilty of the very thing she reprimands.
[3] The main problem with Gordon-Reed's argument, however, lies in the fact that she discredits the credibility of Jefferson historians. Many of these historians have spent the majority of their lives studying Jefferson and his mannerisms, so to "fill in the blanks" about Jefferson's life based on their "supposed knowledge of him" does not seem as wrong as Gordon-Reed makes it out to be. These historians have sufficient knowledge about Jefferson to make surmises about him, so if their surmises are logical and can be supported objectively, there seems no wrong in "filling in the blanks." Wouldn't people who have spent so long in their lives studying a topic be justified making assumptions and logical explanations on ambiguous parts of their study? Gordon-Reed certainly does not think so, and she deems these surmises as a scholarly wrong. Essentially, what Gordon-Reed is really doing is debasing scholarly credibility to support her own argument. And this argument is not as impartial and objective as the adroit lawyer makes it out to be.
[4] Dumas Malone is one of the scholars guilty of "filling-in-the-blanks." Malone's "basic approach to the evidence of a liaison," ironically, "was to avoid the subject as much as possible" (46). Malone, however, acknowledges that there were instances in Jefferson's life that might've "fueled the charge" of a relationship, but he identifies the main evidence against Jefferson as his "preferential treatment of Hemings family members." According to Malone, the "catalyst" for this preferential treatment was Elizabeth Hemings, Sally's mother, not Sally (46). Since Elizabeth was the concubine of John Wayles, Jefferson's father-in-law, Jefferson associated their children with his dead wife Martha, and "it was, therefore, out of love for his wife's memory that Jefferson treated the Hemingses with such favor" (47).
[5] Gordon-Reed agrees that Malone's theory is a "plausible explanation" for the "preferential treatment," but she qualifies it by saying that though Elizabeth may have been the reason the Jefferson relation with the Hemingses began, "she may not have been the reason it continued." Gordon-Reed's counter-argument is strong here, for Malone never revealed the focus of that special treatment on Sally and her children: "as much as Jefferson may have liked Elizabeth, he did not free all of the children she had with Wayles," yet Jefferson did allow all of Sally's children to go free when they came of age (47).
[6] Gordon-Reed further deconstructs Malone's reasoning by revealing the large amount of omitted information from Madison Hemings's account, notably the part about Jefferson's promise to free all of Sally's children at the age of twenty-one. According to Gordon-Reed, Malone "did not discuss Beverly Hemings at all," and "He noted Harriet Hemings' departure but did not say that she left at twenty-one." In order to deflect attention from the limited emancipation of Sally's children, Malone argues that no one has commented on the fact that Jefferson freed other Hemingses, Robert and James, but Gordon-Reed counter-argues that Malone conveniently ignores that "Robert had to buy his freedom from Jefferson" and that "Jefferson may have had to promise freedom to James Hemings in order to get him to return from France to the U.S." But Sally's children never had to go through the same trouble as these other Hemingses, and "there is no evidence that Sally Hemings's children obtained their freedom under similar circumstances" (47). These circumstances being the hardship that many slaves faced in obtaining their freedom.
[7] While Gordon-Reed's arguments are laudably mainly objective in this section, the passage above demonstrates some weak logic. Gordon-Reed claims that Malone never addresses the possibility that "Jefferson may have had to promise freedom to James Hemings" in order for him to return to the United States (47). The key word in Gordon-Reed's argument is that Jefferson "may" have had to promise James freedom, but it doesn't necessarily mean that he did. In this passage we see Gordon-Reed making her own surmises and assumptions about the controversy, essentially doing what she accuses and reprimands other historians for. Gordon-Reed follows this weak logic with another weak argument when she says that "there is no evidence that Sally Hemings's children obtained their freedom under similar circumstances." Although there may not be any evidence that the Hemings children did not endure similar circumstances, there also isn't any evidence against it. How can we be certain that the Hemings children did not face such hardships? The answer is that we can't. Gordon-Reed, however, accepts this idea as near-gospel and leaves no room for other arguments.
[8] Gordon-Reed's final argument against Malone, however, comes when she addresses Jefferson's clear partiality toward Sally and her children. Gordon-Reed claims that many Jefferson defenses rest "on the notion that there is no evidence that Sally Hemings herself received any special treatment from him." Yet Gordon-Reed raises an excellent question: "What could a woman who was a slave and a mother want most in the world?" Especially when we remember that forced separation of mothers and children were frightfully routine events in the institution of slavery. According to Gordon-Reed, "considering the normal thoughts and feelings of human beings would make it clear that the grant of freedom to a slave woman's children would have been the highest and most profound form of special treatment a mother could receive" (47). Gordon-Reed powerfully deconstructs Malone's argument that Sally and her children did not receive special treatment in this single passage.
[9] Overall, Gordon-Reed's argument is logical and objective. Her greatest flaw, though, is her covert bias. Though she does an excellent job analyzing and coming up with counter-arguments to Malone, her arguments are clearly partial to only one side: the side that supports the notion that Jefferson and Hemings shared a relationship. Nevertheless, Gordon-Reed's partiality does not take away from her expertise in clearly analyzing claims and deconstructing arguments, skills that demonstrate her excellence in not only writing, but in law.
