| Episodes |
Don't Shoot the Messenger [AGR 59-66]
Hannah Masse
[1] One may think it impossible for a topic such as, say, rocket launching, to be boring. However, do not underestimate the power of a professor with a droning voice and bland personality. That being said, sometimes it isn't about how interesting or true a story is -- it's about who tells it and how it is told. In Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, Annette Gordon-Reed expands on this theory in relation to the accusations made that our third president was involved in a miscegenous relationship with slave Sally Hemings. In the introduction to the "James Callender" chapter (59-66), Gordon-Reed examines how the Jefferson-Hemings affair was publicized by two different sources: 1) horrible, crude James Callender and 2) opponents of Jefferson's Republicans, the Federalist newspaper editors. As it turns out, Callender was not the first to speak of the supposed affair between Jefferson and Sally; rumors among Federalists were already being passed. Although both Jefferson attackers had their distasteful motives to tarnish the reputation of our Founding Father, Gordon-Reed deems it necessary that readers do not rule out the validity of the story solely on the basis of who is telling it. In this section, Gordon-Reed evaluates the public's impression of James Callender and its impact on the believability of a relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.
[2] Gordon-Reed initially sets the reader up with a brief background on Callender, describing his childish goal to get revenge on Jefferson while soiling the lives of other "local white men who went to theaters and other outings with black women" (61). Readers come to know Callender as the racist bully that he was. Jefferson defenders have "use[d] the outrageousness and absurdity of Callender himself to make the notion of a Jefferson-Hemings liaison equally outrageous and absurd" (59). However, after depicting him as a terrible, shallow man, Gordon-Reed shocks us. She warns against allowing the journalist's ugly reputation dictate whether or not Jefferson was actually involved with Sally Hemings, saying that "the fact that he was a loathsome character does not mean that he always lied" and that "exaggeration, rather than fabrication, was Callender's chief journalistic flaw" (62). Callender was a horrible person, yes. But that does nothing to prove a Jefferson-Hemings relationship non-existent.
[3] Gordon-Reed goes on to assert that truth is not the main factor in the argument over the Jefferson-Hemings scandal, but "public impressions of the nature of the evidence" (65). Jefferson defenders used Callender's disgraceful character to discredit the possibility of our president having relations with a black slave woman. According to Gordon-Reed, "this characterization [of Callender] makes it easier to present the story as something so fantastic and without foundation that it is unworthy of a second thought" (65). But what if the story was not a product of Callender's imagination?
[4] Switching gears in the second part of her introduction to the James Callender chapter, Gordon-Reed examines the Federalists' approach to the Jefferson-Hemings affair. Like Callender, the Federalists had reason to tear Jefferson down: they wanted to strengthen their political party. However, Gordon-Reed once again warns, "while it is appropriate to be skeptical of their claims, one cannot take the position that because they were Federalists, the newspaper editors were lying" (63). In fact, it is quite possible that the newspaper staff had researched Sally Hemings and had gained some reliable information on the topic of the supposed affair (64).
[5] Whether or not the information presented by the Federalist editors is true is undermined simply by the realization that Callender was not the only one claiming an affair between President and slave at the time. Contrary to many historical accounts of the affair, Callender was not, in fact, the first person to pass word on a supposed relationship: "An editor of a Federalist newspaper indicated that he had heard members of the Virginia gentry talk about Jefferson having a slave mistress for some period before Callender's writings" (63). Gordon-Reed identifies how having sources other than Callender suggesting an affair increases the story's credibility. She acknowledges "there is a difference between an individual's making up a story out of whole cloth and maliciously repeating a story that has been told by others" (65). For years, Jefferson defenders had used Callender's atrocious character to argue against an affair with Sally Hemings and prove that it did not exist. However, this defensive tactic is washed away knowing that the affair is not some fictional rumor magically thought up by James Callender.
[6] At the end of the day, Annette Gordon-Reed is neither supporting James Callender nor opposing him. She is not arguing for either side of the controversy debate. What she is doing is encouraging readers to keep their minds open by not dismissing Callender's claims solely because of his personality; he is just the messenger.
