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Testing the Expert in the "James Callender" Chapter

"In 1802, during Thomas Jefferson's first term as president of the United States, James Callender made the first public allegation that Jefferson had been involved in a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings. The response to Callender's account has always been an important part of the defense of Jefferson against the charge of miscegenation."(59)

Here are examples of identifying charges that Jefferson defenders have made and sketching out Gordon-Reed's responses.


Tactic 1: The Character Offense

Jefferson defenders focus on Callender's personality rather than the content of his writings. (76)

"Over the years the basic strategy employed in dealing with Callender and his expose has been to use the outrageousness and absurdity of Callender himself to make the notion of a Jefferson-Hemings liaison equally outrageous and absurd." (59)

Callender was unquestionably out to exact revenge: "He was a despicable individual ruled by venom and racism." (59)

AGR's response to Tactic 1:

"The fact that [Callender] was a loathsome character does not mean that he always lied." (62)

Blackmailers are successful because they have at least some truth. (62)

Does having a motive like revenge "mean that the story is false?" No. (62)

"People who are looking for the truth in this matter are not absolved from the need to subject the substance of the statement to scrutiny." (62)

Adjectives like "loathsome," "drunken," and "vile" cannot substitute for analysis. (76)

Callender's style was to exaggerate rather than to fabricate. (62)

And he was right about Hamilton, about Jefferson supporting his political activity (he produced letters from Jefferson as evidence), about Jefferson trying to seduce the married Mrs. Walker. (76)

We have to face the "unpleasant truth that even a despicable man can be right about some things." (76)

We must "separate the wheat from the chaff." (76)

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Tactic 2: Isolating Callender

"To discredit a Jefferson-Hemings liaison, it is necessary to discuss James Callender as though he invented the story and as though none of Callender's contemporaries looked into the matter." (65)

The impression has been generated that Callender "originated the claim that Thomas Jefferson kept a slave mistress." (62)

The motto of Jefferson's defenders might be "Callender is the story, the story is Callender." (65)

The idea is to create the impression that the story is solely the result of Callender's desire for revenge on Jefferson. (63)

AGR's response to Tactic 2:

"The story does not seem to have sprung forth full blown from James Callender." (63)

"Jefferson's neighbors had been gossiping about the alleged affair for some years before Callender knew about it." (65)

One newspaper editor considered publishing the story three years earlier. (63)

Another Federalist newspaper editor (thus in the rival political party) also had the story earlier but declined to publish it for lack of proof. (63)

Other Federalist newspaper editors who investigated at the time of Callender's claim found it true but "did not parrot Callender's line," and they even added information about Sally in an opposite direction: for instance, that she was a seamstress (not a fact from Callender) and that she was "industrious and orderly" (not sluttish per Callender). (64)

The bottom line:

"Federalist editors did not speak with one voice" (64), and thus they were not lying nor simply following Callender's line like sheep. They did their own inquiries and investigations.

Thus, the story doesn't begin with Callender: it doesn't begin on the "imagination and writings of one man" with an admittedly evil motive. (65)

And, though this is totally overlooked by Jefferson defenders, the story doesn't end with Callender either.

"Twenty years after Callender's last published piece on the alleged liaison, Thomas Jefferson himself began to take actions that added support to the main point of Callender's charge: he began to free the children of the woman with whom he was said to have a relationship." (66)

The defenders of Jefferson cannot ignore this: "All of Sally Hemings's children, and she herself, left Monticello as free persons, the only nuclear family on the plantation who achieved this feat." (66)

"Most Jefferson scholars think Callender's charges are to be discussed as one phenomenon. The emancipations of Hemings and her children, when mentioned at all are discussed as another. Madison Hemings's statement is still another. These three items are treated as though they are unrelated, when they should be considered in light of one another." (66)

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Tactic 3: Denying Tom Hemings

"The principal method of showing that Callender was lying rests on the assertion that there was no Tom Hemings who could have been the 'President Tom' referred to so contemptuously by Callender." (67)

Denying "president Tom" is important because it would show 1) that Callender lied about an essential item of the story, and 2) that Sally was not pregnant when she came back from France, and thus her children can be more easily ascribed to others, not Jefferson. (67)

The Case for a Tom Hemings

Why would Callender make up a story that would have been so easy to disprove? (70)

Why would he need to make up a story about Tom when Jefferson already had a son Beverley at the time, though younger (4 years old in 1802)? Would the age of a son who looked like Jefferson have mattered? (70)

If there was no Tom, wouldn't Jefferson's defenders have simply pointed that out and ended the controversy? (70)

Wouldn't anyone investigating have easily discovered that there was no Tom? (70)

The Case against a Tom Hemings

Madison Hemings doesn't mention him in his memoir. (71)

If Tom was sent away to live with the Woodsons when the scandal broke (thus becoming Tom Woodson), as some have suggested, why was he not allowed to return when the scandal died down? (72) Why was he sent away permanently, when the reason was transitory?

In 1805 a Virginian named Thomas Turner named Beverley the oldest son.

AGR's response to Tactic 3:

The bottom line: "We do not know with a degree of certainty that Tom Hemings existed." (77)

"Whether James Callender was lying about 'President Tom' is still an open question." (77)

However, "The existence or non-existence of Tom Hemings has taken on a significance beyond its actual importance." (77)

What we should do, then, is to focus on the children we do know: Beverley, Harriet, Madison, Eston. (77)

It is very important to note, though, that Callender's 1802 claim that Jefferson and Sally had five children is "reasonable." (73)

In 1802, "Sally Hemings would have had five children if all the children she is reported to have given birth to had lived": the child conceived in France who died, Harriet who died at two, Beverley, a daughter who died, the second Harriet. (73)

Therefore, the source of Callender's information, primarily from Monticello neighbors, was correct in a general sense but "stale," not current. (73, 75)

Thus, "Callender's statement that Sally Hemings had given birth to five children by the year 1802 can be supported by extrinsic evidence. It provides an additional reason to believe Madison Heming's assertion that his Mother gave birth to a child upon her return from France, even if one does not believe that child grew up to be the 'President Tom' of James Callender's articles." (77)