Norm Ledgin's Blog, page 10

Historian Shares SkepticismAbout Thomas Jefferson ...

Historian Shares Skepticism
About Thomas Jefferson 

Before a standing-room-only audience October 25, 2012, in the Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Public Library, historian Henry Wiencek offered a dark side of Thomas Jefferson’s character. That theme dominates his new book, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves.
By emphasis on negatives, Wiencek has apparently found a niche. In 2003 he authored An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. During his local presentation, however, he said Washington was his “favorite president.”
The speaker implied Jefferson knew without objection that small boys working in his Monticello nailery were whipped, that his treatment of slaves included the breaking up of families for profit or gift value, that he calculated and exploited the cash worth of his slaves, and that he ignored a number of opportunities to free them.
While conceding that in his early years Jefferson acted politically upon his abhorrence of slavery, Wiencek said later behavior demonstrated passive acceptance—that Jefferson also advocated slavery’s spread to western territories.
Norm asked two questions. The first was whether the speaker would concede Jefferson was unable to free his slaves because, as a poor money manager facing bankruptcy, he’d lost ownership of them to banks holding mortgages on them. Wiencek’s skeptical reply was that it was within Jefferson’s nature and power to ignore that encumbrance if he’d wanted to.
The second question was on “attitude”—whether in 1809 Jefferson recanted to abolitionist Henri Gregoire the unfortunate libels against Negroes in TJ’s self-published 1780s book, Notes on the State of Virginia. Without identification, the speaker gestured quote marks and said a subsequent Jefferson letter confessed he’d gone “soft” writing Gregoire.
In a brief exchange involving a crippling loan co-signing by Jefferson, Wiencek confessed his own research “hadn’t run across” details Norm described.      
     
Sally of Monticello: Founding Mother
(complete novel available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback)
The story continues…
 
8
“Actually, Sir,—” I gulped and nearly choked. “—I’ve read portions of your book several times. I wanted to be certain I understood your errors well enough to discuss them when the opportunity arose.” Thomas’s stare burned a hole in me as I added, “I presume you wrote in the illumination of solitude, but you—” The effort was tying my tongue. “—got a few things wrong.”
There came a long pause, then, “Really. Needless to say, Sally, this isn’t the opportunity.” He turned and picked up a quill pen. Then, “On a matter of greater interest to me, did Polly’s birthday party go well yesterday?”
“Yes,” I replied quickly, brightly, so as not to let him believe he’d thrown me off. “By note from the Abbess I’m pleased to report, all the girls at school were delighted with arrangements for the celebration. Polly was overjoyed. I delivered the decorated cake from Jimmy personally and lingered briefly at the nuns’ invitation.”
“Good. Now run along, please.” He dipped the pen.
I shrugged and started for the door, then turned. “I don’t understand you, Mr. Jefferson.”
“What?”
I frowned and repeated, “I don’t understand you.”
He looked about helplessly. “It’s scarcely important whether you understand me, Sally. Don’t you have another place to do your work? I wish you’d let me do mine.”
I set down the pail and duster. I sat on a chair close to his writing desk.
“Sir, do I smell bad to you? That’s something I’ve urgently wanted to ask.”
“Do you what?” A pulsing started in his neck. But I would see this through.
“Have a disagreeable odor?” I lifted my elbows to let the breeze pass my underarms.
“No.” It was his turn to frown. “Not in the least.” His voice rose an octave. “Why do you raise such a frivolous matter when you know I have important work?”
“What I’m asking is important, Mr. Jefferson. In your book you wrote that Negroes have a special condition that sends out a disagreeable odor. I’m a quarter-Negro. Tell me honestly, do I stink?” I raised my elbows again and leaned closer to offer him a sniff.
“I’ve said you don’t. You’re trying my patience.”
As he glared, I got the feeling he was fascinated by my challenge. His darting gaze was also studying my face, so like his late wife’s—everyone said.
I pressed on, hoping I wouldn’t stammer. “You— You wrote that an Oran-ootan, something like an ape, would prefer to have sexual relations with a black woman than with a female of his own species.”
He blushed. “That’s a decidedly inappropriate expression to use in conversation, considering you’re Patsy’s age.”
I had to pretend not to understand. I’d discomforted him without meaning to. “What expression? Oran-ootan? That’s from your book.”
“No, the one you used for physical intimacy.”
“Oh. Well then, please advise me.” I let the words tumble forth as I’d rehearsed them in my head. “Should I fear visiting a place such as a zoo, that an ape-like animal will escape his cage and try to mate with me?”
He rose from his chair. It scraped the hard floor as it moved. He paced the room a moment, then turned to face me, crossing his arms.
After a long pause, “I’ve decided you could benefit from schooling. As we move into fall, I can order arrangements. You’re an intelligent young woman. I believe you can absorb the French language, as well as skills to enhance your service.”
“Service,” I repeated, raising my eyebrows.
Thomas tried to keep a steady fix on my eyes, which many have described as “golden” though they were only a different form of light hazel than his. I supposed he wished to enforce understanding of my low station and his patronage. But I held my stare longer, wearing a soft grin. A pleasant grin, not sassy.
“You have talents as a seamstress. That occupation and dressmaking should be part of your training. James receives instruction to cook in the French style, and it would help if you could assist him. Further, you may benefit from training as a femme de chambre, a housemaid who manages the personal effects of gentlemen and ladies.”
“I would like that, yes.” I gave him my best dimpled smile, which was also said to copy my late half-sister’s. “Thank you, Sir. Can there be music and dance as well?”
He hesitated, then said. “Music and dance, of course.”
I nodded vigorously at that. “Thank you.”
“Some of the schooling may require your living away from here. I would see to all expenses of tutelage and any necessary boarding. As I do with James, I would pay you for your services. When my daughters are in the Hôtel de Langeac weekends, attendance to their needs would be your priority. When they’re at the convent school, if it pleases them and without interrupting their learning, you could visit them there.”
“I would enjoy receiving pay, yes, and visiting my nieces Patsy and Polly at school.”
Color rose in his face at my reminder of kinship. He cleared his throat. “In free time you may stroll through the city, do a little shopping, whatever it is girls your age do to fill their time. But you’ll neither busy nor idle yourself in here when I’m trying to work.”
“Yes, Sir. I understand.”
He paused again, then, “I’ve lately begun considering—to avoid unwelcome distraction and because this Ministry often grows busy with visitors—that I may book a retreat. Somewhere I can stay and work. A place of relative solitude, enabling me to do my writing. And, of course, I must travel to other parts of Europe in the performance of one mission or another.”
I nodded. “You wish to illuminate the process of thinking. That’s what solitude does.”
“Exactly.”
I took an awful chance and was near dizziness for it. My heart jumped. A cold sweat rushed from my brow. I said, “You wish to see a great deal less of me.”
Challenging a man who was more Master than in-law, I’d placed myself between girlish servitude and a “fate” Mama saw for me.
He winced.
I prayed my mother’s advice was right, that I should assess the right moments to test where personal matters stood—and that this was such a moment.
He unfolded his arms and glanced at the floor. “Excuse me,” he said. He went out the open balcony door, face and neck as red as I’d ever seen them. Had I given him something new to think over? From the befuddled look of the dear man, I believed I had.
The incident left me so nervous I wet myself a wee bit.
I fished a tiny bottle of cologne from the apron pocket, removed the stopper with shaking hands, and took a drop on my finger. I rose and spread the drop on the seat fabric. Then another drop for good measure.
I picked up the duster, the pail by the handle, and stood straight to inhale a billowing scent. With Thomas still on the balcony I left the suite, heart pounding.
Yet I carried away a sense of small triumph, muttering to myself, “Disagreeable odor, my fanny.”

Critics of Slaveholder JeffersonAre Prisoners of a Time W...

Critics of Slaveholder Jefferson
Are Prisoners of a Time Warp
 
          Few negatives about Thomas Jefferson come through louder and clearer than criticism of his having owned slaves. So did other presidents, but Jefferson’s writings on liberty have made him appear hypocritical. In that timeand place, however, slaveholding didn’t look quite so onerous—except to slaves.

          There were contemporary critics of the practice, such as his friend the Marquis de Lafayette and northerners who served with Jefferson in government. But they understood that, for plantation owners, slavery was a system from which none could extricate themselves easily, and abrupt change was a fearsome prospect.
          In essence Jefferson inherited slaves—and became fated to head his large family and care responsibly for all, including slaves—when he was only 14. Though for several years he concentrated on his education and endured management of family properties by executors of his late father’s estate, he understood his future role and became ambivalent about it.
          As he observed many years later, slavery was like seizing a wolf by the ears—“we can neither hold him nor safely let him go.” With others he feared reprisals by freed slaves for ill treatment, and he treated them far better than most. He also sought reforms of slavery and the slave trade at the earliest stages of his public service and into his presidency.
          Present-day critics misdirect their bitterness when they focus on Jefferson. Because of financial misfortune he found himself late in life unable to copy George Washington, unable to free more than a handful of slaves. The banks held mortgages on the rest.
          There is no proper focus for rancor on this topic. Not against southern white gentry who benefited from northern white slavetrading, not against a lapsed morality against Africans that organized religion was powerless to rescue, and certainly not against Thomas Jefferson.
He was a product of his time and, in many other ways, far ahead of his time.
 
   
 
Sally of Monticello: Founding Mother
(complete novel available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback)
The story continues…
 
7
By my third week at the Ministry I’d demonstrated—grudgingly—that I knew my place. I gave the rooms better cleaning than its nonresident staff administered. That had the potential for creating new enemies. A few women showed resentment and chattered to one another in a language I’d only begun to grasp.
I’d finished cleaning the flush-type water closet that helped feed the Seine. Then I’d moved on to swab the sunken tub Thomas splurged to install, when I heard a series of guttural growls. They came from the next room, his oval study and bedchamber. Muffled voices followed.
I’d been unaware Thomas had entered, perhaps to write. That seemed the main thing he did—write, write, write. I doubted he or Mr. Short was aware I was in the bathroom, unless they could smell cleaning compound. The only way out was through the study.
I cocked my head to listen. What had prompted growling? His secretary asked whether he was freshly plagued by the wrist injury.
“No, no, no. It’s the damnable secrecy of the Constitutional Convention. Mr. Madison’s letter reveals nothing of value. He’s sworn to silence like the rest. Damn it.”
Goodness.If he was in a state over events in Philadelphia, he’d certainly be upset to find a servant eavesdropping. Still, I moved closer to the door that was slightly ajar, to hear better.
“Might it be appropriate,” Mr. Short said, “to ask Mr. Madison for small clues? Hints of ground that may have been gained on drafting the document? Or lost?”
“James Madison is the most principled of men,” Thomas replied. “In a contest of integrity he would come away the winner. I would straggle shamefully. I must continue a tedious wait for news of achievement, owing to the slowness of overseas post.”
I heard the drapes slide—expensive pale-blue, orange-fringed dust collectors covering the doorway to the balcony. I felt a breeze, Mr. Short likely having decided the room needed airing.
Thomas said, “As tension against the Court at Versailles rises, the reformers here should have a window to shaping the American Constitution. They’d benefit from watching development of a compact that reflects popular consensus. Our Convention’s secrecy has blocked that.”
“The good side,” Mr. Short said, “is that we’re escaping the cry of our fomenting revolution on French soil.”
Silence.
Poor naïve, young, curly-haired, ambitious Mr. Short.
I’ve been here only a couple of weeks but knew how Thomas prodded the French repeatedly. His remarks to visitors never let up over the extravagances of “that drunken sot” Louis Sixteenth and the “whorish” Marie Antoinette. To me that was like planting seeds of rebellion as readily as his cultivating the lush garden downstairs.
After the pause, he said, “I’ll make my reply to Mr. Madison primarily personal, about the books we’ve just shipped. I’ll need the statement of accounts for them.”
“No matters of state?” the secretary asked.
“A word or two about Mr. Adams’s success in arranging a loan from the Dutch. That loan will help us repay the French for backing our revolution. Despite this country’s financial collapse, Louis continues to clean out the royal treasury and demand more. As for the Hollanders, they need this lending opportunity to show strength among European powers. Adams’s move should benefit all.”
I liked hearing praise of Mr. Adams.
There was so much a girl from the Mulberry Row slave quarter could learn, ear to the door of the Master’s study without his knowledge.
Oops. In turning away I’d kicked the cleaning pail.
“What’s that confounded racket?”
“Oh, my,” Mr. Short said. “It must be Miss Hemings cleaning the bath. With Patsy and Polly at school, M’sieu Petit assigned Sally necessary tidying. I didn’t know she was in there. I’ll tell her to move to another area of the apartments.”
I dumped everything into the pail, picked it up, and called, “No need, Sir. I’ll leave.” I’d planned to dust, set out mint oil, perhaps clean windows in the bedchamber and study. But I said, “I don’t want to disturb Mr. Jefferson.”
I came out of the bathroom looking frumpish, dressed in an oversized apron, my long hair coiled in a turban. I hated for Thomas to see me like this, but his smirk gave me hope that I was at least a half-welcome sight, regardless.
Mr. Short said, “I’ll make clear to Petit we need a better system for—”
“Don’t worry yourself about it,” Thomas said. “Please get me the statement of accounts for Mr. Madison’s books.”
After the secretary left, “I appreciate your expressed consideration, Sally. Understand, we’re trying to find a proper routine for you. As for me, when I write letters, I prefer privacy. Solitude illuminates the process of thinking. Company shades it. So now,” he lifted his chin to say with a forced smile, “best be on your way.”
I took my time rearranging the cleaning supplies, setting a container of washing soda in the pail and folding wet rags carefully. I tucked a feather duster under my arm, lifted the pail, and shambled slowly to the door. I sensed Thomas was having a small fit over my snail’s pace, but I was trying to muster courage for a meaningful conversation.
I turned and said, “May I ask a question?”
He groaned. “Quickly, please. I’m already forming this letter in my mind.”
“I overheard you mention books to Mr. Short. That reminded me to tell you, I’ve read your Notes on the State of Virginia and your views about Negroes.”
“Well, now. I’m flattered by your interest.” He glanced away as though dismissing me, so I moved closer.
My heart galloped and my head throbbed over what I was about to say and do. Time to “stand up to him some.” And try and be smooth about it.
And not faint dead away.

Jefferson’s So-called “Denial”Defies Clarity, Logic, and ...

Jefferson’s So-called “Denial”
Defies Clarity, Logic, and Science
 
          An often cited July 1, 1805 letter by Thomas Jefferson isn’t a clear denial of his relationship with Sally Hemings. That’s Norm’s opinion.
The Jefferson letter says allegation of an early flirtation with neighbor Mrs. Betsy Walker “is the only one founded on truth among all their allegations against me.”
Deniers of the Sally affair offer this private letter Jefferson sent Navy Secretary Robert Smith as evidence the affair never happened. Norm contends there are several things wrong with that approach.
          The words “all their” are ambiguous. Jefferson wrote the letter years past James Callender’s 1802 printed revelations about the liaison with Sally. Jefferson made no public denial of the report at the time. Evidence shows he continued the relationship with Sally two decades past 1805.
          What’s difficult to understand is that the deniers ignore evidence the Thomas Jefferson Foundation has gathered, studied carefully, and accepted—that Jefferson was the father of Sally’s children.
          Unfortunately, the denials tend to reinforce incredible negatives. To imply—after widower Jefferson’s fling with Mrs. Maria Cosway in Paris—that he would choose celibacy? That prompts Norm to observe, “unlikely.”
          Protesters against literature about the Sally affair also deny DNA evidence completed in 1998. They see such stories as a blot on Jefferson’s character. He wouldn’t have forced himself on a slave, they say, and that much is true.
The critics also say he’d have obeyed laws against race-mixing, but Norm disagrees and argues, “Why should he comply? Few among white Virginia gentry obeyed those laws.” Furthermore, three-fourths-white Sally was his reportedly attractive sister-in-law and his late wife’s look-alike. Time for a reality check.
          Violation of laws against miscegenation was common. Loving relations between whites and blacks were more common than supposed. Strong denial of that human phenomenon has an appearance of racism the deniers can’t possibly intend.
          Norm’s suggestion: “Do as the Thomas Jefferson Foundation has done about the affair, at the same time giving prominence to the nation’s mixed-race legacy. Embrace it.”   
 
     
Sally of Monticello: Founding Mother
(complete novel available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback)
The story continues…
 
6
“What do you mean, going free?”
Jimmy shrugged. “They haven’t recognized slavery in France for centuries. Only in French colonies. Here you and I are free.”
“No, you’re making a joke. If you were free, you’d be starting a café on the Champs-Élysées, not sweating in here. Nancy Ann West in Charlottesville? A freed slave who plans a bake shop? She’ll become rich.”
“I have security with Mr. Jefferson. He sends me to chef’s school. He pays me. He gives me room and board.”
I felt a drumbeat in my ears. Free. But how could I ever be free when tied to so many kinfolks back home? Still— “Jimmy, are you sure? I could leave this building? Declare myself a free person?”
“Free and equal to Mr. Jefferson. But you’d better figure where your next meal is coming from—and where you’ll sleep.”
The drumbeat grew louder. Equal. As Thomas had written, all men are equal. My presumptuousness spread that to women. The notion took my breath away. “Does he know you know this?”
“Of course. And now you know. Before long you’ll have to decide what to do.”
“I could never give up being a Hemings and go French. I doubt you could either.”
Jimmy scratched his nose and left a bit of flour on the tip. “I don’t know what I’ll do. For now it feels good to think about.”
“Forget what I said about a café. You can’t leave the Hemingses. It’d be horrible for Mama.” I shuddered at the prospect for either of us, but the drumbeat continued.
Jimmy said, “If I decided to stay here, Mama would understand.”
“Don’t count on it, Jimmy Hemings. She’d find you and kick your black ass straight back to Virginia.”
He laughed. “Grown-up talk from my baby sister.”
“Baby? You haven’t noticed I’ve filled out?”
“Mr. Jefferson sure as hell noticed. Best be careful. He’d as soon fuck you as Mrs. Cosway.”
I grabbed a chunk of dough and threw it at Jimmy but missed. “Watch your damned tongue. Mama wants me to be a lady, and that’s what I aim to be, slave or not.” I was still trying to put my mind to being free in Paris. “Saying I’m Thomas’s equal puts a new light on things.”
“Oh? You have ambitions? Like your friend Nancy What’s-her-name?”
I slid off the stool. “I don’t know yet what to think. You realize being free gives you trading power when Thomas says it’s time to go home?”
“I’m not stupid, sis, even if I haven’t read those books. If you grow casual about the respect you owe and call him Thomas, I see trouble. As for trading, is your plan to take him between your legs, like Mama did with Master John?”
I gritted my teeth and slapped his face. I breathed hard and glared. I’d left flour on his cheek. “I’m going to write Mama. You’ve turned rotten.”
“Damn it, Sally, why’d you hit me? Go ahead, tell Mama whatever you like. I’m twenty-two. I don’t jump to what Betty Hemings says anymore.”
“Change your tune or you’ll be sorry you helped me from the carriage yesterday.”
“Big talk. Big talk.” He turned, floured his hands, and bent over a low table to knead a huge roll of dough. He mumbled, “Don’t get on my bad side.”
“You enjoy having money,” I said to his back, “and bedding French girls who like swarthy men. But you’ll always be a Hemings. I won’t let you forget it.”
“When does the next ship leave, Sally? You enjoy being a slave? Go back.”
I lifted my skirt and kicked him in the derrière. I may also have got his balls with the point of my shoe for he yelped loudly. I stomped from the kitchen.
Now I’d made a terrible impression on two men in my life.
Critta had speculated Paris would be a happy adventure, but the prospect of joy disappeared like wind-swept smoke before I’d finished unpacking.

Patrick Lee as Thomas Jefferson:A Pleasure to Watch and L...

Patrick Lee as Thomas Jefferson:
A Pleasure to Watch and Listen  
     
          The Kansas City Public Library isn’t what Norm remembers it to have been 50 years ago, when he first set foot in town.
It’s vastly more exciting.
          Library Director Crosby Kemper III has injected new life into the institution by his Meet the Past series and other innovations. The programs are recorded for later broadcast on KCPT, Channel 19 TV, and have attracted standing-room-only audiences.
          The appearance of Patrick Lee as Thomas Jefferson on Thursday, September 20, was just such an event. Kemper kept a lively exchange going with pointed questions. The pair offered highlights of historical fact, jewels of wisdom, and good-natured humor.
          Absent was any discussion of slavery that might have led audience members to confusion. The 90-minute program contained no question period by which to air the issue, which Norm discusses freely in his six-hour Jefferson courses for the University of Kansas’s Continuing Education Department.  
          If one had hoped to hear of the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings, one would have been disappointed. Norm’s brief meeting with Lee afterwards led to an impression the actor prefers to skirt that controversy.
          Given the format of Meet the Past and the enthusiasm of the attentive audience, Kemper and Lee struck the right balance in their positive approach and gave the community a memorable bit of time-travel.     
 
 
           
Sally of Monticello: Founding Mother
(complete novel available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback)
The story continues…
 
 
5
 “You made a terrible impression,” Jimmy said the next morning. We were in the Langeac kitchen, his domain as chef. “Mr. Jefferson said you were cheeky.”
“Cheeky,” I repeated, twisting my mouth. I’d perched on a high stool so I could watch Jimmy work. In renovating this building, he and Thomas had evidently taken special pains with the kitchen. All was arranged for efficiency. Every country’s dignitaries, Jimmy explained, expected a foreign ministry would entertain them with food and drink. So, voilà.
But now the topic was my apparent brashness.
“Yes, cheeky. Before taking the girls to the Abbaye this morning, he also said—maybe to your credit—your vocabulary startled him. But he was quick to add you were presumptuous. On the whole, he didn’t know what to make of you.”
I shook my head, smarting from the bad report and criticism. “I’ve been taking care of his Monticello quarters off and on for years and learned by reading his books. Some were by presumptuous people he admires. I believe you’d enjoy Voltaire.”
My brother smirked. He wasn’t a reader, nor did he react to my sarcasm. He turned attention to rolling triangles of dough, letting the points rest at the top and twisting each into a bow.
“What are those you’re making?”
“Fancy rolls called croissants.”
“Why curve the ends?”
“Croissants—crescents. The Queen popularized them. She’s from Austria. A hundred years ago the Vienna bakers at night heard the Turks digging a tunnel under them. They alerted the city’s defenders, and the Turks got the worst. Crescents were on the enemy flag, so croissants became a symbol.”
“I heard she’s a bad person.”
“Marie Antoinette?” Jimmy put the crescent rolls into the heated oven. “She was your age when she married Louis. He didn’t consummate the marriage, so she took lovers—they say both male and female.”
I was about to choke. “Brothers and sisters are forbidden to discuss such matters.”
He raised his eyebrows and mocked me. “Such matters. Such matters. In Paris or on plantations, people behave the same. The difference is in Virginia they don’t discuss it, pretending none of it happens. Do you want to hear about a case of incest back home?”
“NO.”
He smiled, mumbling what I understood as, “Paris will change you. It does everyone.”
“Are you sure the Queen was only fourteen when she, uh—?”
“See? Paris is changing you already.” Then, in a big-brother tone, “Why did you scold Mr. Jefferson over Polly? You forgot your place.”
I could accept “place” from Jimmy, yet I gasped. “He took it as scolding?”
“And he suggested I inform you of the behavior everyone expects of you.”
“I didn’t scold. He doesn’t know how to raise daughters. Martha Wayles would never have countenanced what he tells the girls, that if they make this or that mistake he won’t love them.”
“As I said, you forgot your place. And don’t use big words to try and impress me.”
 “Oh, pish-posh about my place. We’re all family, aren’t we? I suppose you’ll remind me I’m a slave, or servant as Thomas calls us.”
“Thomas? You call him Thomas?”
“Not to his face. Maybe after we get used to each other I will. I’m his sister-in-law, for God’s sake. I suppose you keep calling him MasterThomas. Or Mister Jefferson.”
Jimmy appeared startled as well as amused. He directed me to help clean the surface where he’d mixed dough for the crescent rolls. I got off the stool and put energy into it, glad to be doing something.
“You can clean with that water or heat it to boiling,” he said, “but don’t drink it.”
“I know about that.”
“Over and over I keep thinking how, thanks to Daddy, our clan has become complicated. Friends I’ve made can’t believe the Master and I are brothers-in-law.”
“You were lucky to know Daddy,” I said. “I never did.”
“John Wayles could have given Louis Sixteenth lessons. He put three wives in the ground before taking up with Mama. Fathered some white, some doomed by color. Except me—and now you—going free.” He handed me a kitchen towel to dry my hands.
I returned to my perch. Then what Jimmy had just said smacked my brain.

 

That awful stuff about Jeffersonin American History...

 
That awful stuff about Jefferson
in American History and Smithsonian
           Could any of that cover article by Henry Wiencek in the October, 2012, American History magazine be true? Or the same sort of stuff by him in Smithsonian?
          Our very human Founder, Thomas Jefferson, wasn’t perfect. However, Wiencek omitted facts that would have countered the overall impression his readers will receive from the articles.
          For example, historian Wiencek implied Jefferson allowed his slaves to be whipped, when in fact TJ dismissed overseer Gabriel Lilly for such brutality.
          Another example of Wiencek’s sensationalism was an accusation that TJ exploited slaves to gain “financial success.” Jefferson was such a poor money manager he went broke. He died owing $107,000 (by today’s standards, around two million dollars), which his grandson ultimately repaid.
          TJ felt obliged to raise money by mortgaging nearly all his slaves. That left him powerless to free them in his will, as George Washington had done. Why? Technically the banks owned them. Wiencek didn’t explain any of that.
 
Cardinal Wuerl and Jefferson make
strange philosophical companions
        The archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Donald Wuerl, has made a claim regarding Thomas Jefferson that doesn’t jibe with the context of TJ’s writings.
       In the September, 2012, issue of Columbia, the Knights of Columbus magazine, the Cardinal’s article titled “Religious Faith in the Public Forum” seeks a link with Jefferson’s philosophy:
          “Jefferson recognized no distinction between public and private morality. There is little room in his thought for the idea that one can be personally against gravely wrong actions but publicly in favor of them. He wrote in a letter to James Madison, dated Aug. 28, 1789, ‘I know but one code of morality for all, whether acting singly or collectively’.”
          Wish as we might that Jefferson had subscribed to the Cardinal’s “public and private” notion , the fact is he didn’t. Slavery is a case in point. Publicly he supported it, though with reservations. Privately he loathed it. The Louisiana Purchase is another example. Publicly he pursued it to close the deal. Privately he knew the Constitution’s basis for it didn’t exist.
          Jefferson is one of the most quoted men in history. He was such a prolific writer, one can find snippets here and there to serve one’s private views. However, the Jefferson-Madison context of the quote lifted by Cardinal Wuerl is this:
          TJ wrote the letter in Paris, describing for Madison the European power shifts then current. He wrote of French moderates’ efforts to seek stability after the attack on the Bastille. The fact that nine of the United States had ratified a Constitution set an example for rising self-government, and the French (who’d midwifed the American Revolution) continued to regard the U.S. favorably.
          By contrast, England stood alone, spurning peaceful accommodation with our new nation and relying on “dark ages” attitudes and actions. Here  Jefferson wrote of “one code of morality” as a verbal assault on the British.
          Did Cardinal Wuerl hope to erode the effect of TJ’s promoting the “wall of separation” between church and state? Or mask Deist TJ’s disdain for clergy as bothersome middlemen?   
 


Sally of Monticello: Founding Mother
(complete novel available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback)
The story continues…
 
4
I balled a fist over my bust and looked down. I’d planned to gaze directly at Thomas and swish my green-and-gold skirt as I walked, but Patsy’s unexpected assault moderated my approach.
Little Polly brushed past her father, pulling at Patsy to climb the front steps and go inside.
Thomas smirked and removed his hat. To me he bowed slightly and said, “Sally,” as though it was a question.
I managed a half-curtsy without falling, though my heart pounded. “Mr. Jefferson, Sir.” Straightening, I said, “Forgive Polly, please. She’s forgotten much about you in the long absence and has felt orphaned. Be patient.”
“Three years,” he said. “To a child so young it seems a lifetime.” He turned to his secretary. “Mr. Short, you recall Miss Sally Hemings, from your visits to Monticello.”
I suppressed a smile at hearing the title, “Miss.” I offered a hand to William Short, who bent to kiss it in the European fashion. He must have realized his error. He gripped my fingers to jerk my hand before releasing it.
Mama was right. Cultured men greeting young women were often foolish—she’d added “like putty”—even with light-skinned Negresses.
Thomas said, “After James and M’sieu Petit finish with the luggage and settle you in your room, Sally, please attend to the girls. Patsy will return to school at the Abbaye Royale de Panthémont tomorrow. I’ve arranged to enroll Polly. Let’s now escape this suffocating heat and go inside.”
“Your wrist,” I said as we climbed the steps. “It’s misshapen. Weren’t the doctors able to reset it properly after your spill? How do you write?”
Color rose in his neck. I was behaving like his sister-in-law, not his servant. “Of no consequence,” he muttered.
Jimmy had written home of Master Thomas’s having dislocated his right wrist, showing off for Maria Cosway by trying to leap a low wall.
Inside the elliptical, stone-floored entry hall Polly had removed her bonnet and seemed in awe of the purplish tapestries, revolving to take them all in. Patsy was evidently coaching her little sister what to say to their father. At last the child approached him and said, “It is very nice to see you again, Papa. I have—”  She turned to Patsy for prompting, then added, “I have missed you.”
Thomas patted her head and nodded. “And I have missed you, Polly. Soon we—” Before he could say more, probably of plans for her Paris stay as a father might do, she turned heel and returned to her big sister. Patsy shrugged and led her into recesses of the Hôtel de Langeac.
William Short had left to help Adrien and Jimmy, so I was alone with Thomas. I beckoned him to join me on one of the stone benches. He sat as far to the other end as he could manage and said, “You wish to speak further?”
“By your leave.” I took a deep breath. “Polly has had a difficult time for several weeks. To make her travel at all, obeying your plan, we deceived her. With my help your sister-in-law, Elizabeth Eppes, lured her to the ship as though on an outing. When Polly fell asleep, we sailed. My presence was not what the child might have expected as adult supervision for a voyage. One of the older women was originally supposed to— It was all hurried and confusing. And unpleasant.”
I grew weepy, remembering the turmoil before the journey. I grabbed my hankie to dab at the corners of my eyes. Not anticipating the possible effect, I stuffed it in my cleavage.
Thomas reddened again.
“Polly,” I continued, “attached herself to the ship’s captain, Mr. Ramsay. In London she transferred her affections to Mrs. Adams, whose displeasure I incurred.”
“She wrote you were too young for the responsibility, as you concede.”
“That’s only part. She didn’t like having a slave on the premises. She thought me so unfit, she planned to send me home with Captain Ramsay. Mr. Adams saved my life by intervening.”
“Saved your life?”
“I needn’t describe what the ship’s crew would have done with an unattached slave girl. I’d sooner have drowned myself.”
I used the hankie again. He glanced away.
“The child was panic-stricken over your not coming to London. The Adamses were outraged that you sent M’sieu Petit in your place. I doubt they’ve informed you fully the extent of their anger, but I heard words I didn’t realize Yankees used.”
He chuckled and folded his arms. Then, “Is there more?”
“Yes. Some time ago you wrote Polly that you might withhold love if she became freckled, that it would make her ugly. Girls take such things seriously, Mr. Jefferson. She won’t set her bonnet aside, for you wrote she must wear it in the sun to avoid freckling.”
He sighed. “You believe I gave Polly false advice? You realize you’re interrupting the reuniting of my family to discuss freckles?”
I squinted and pursed my lips to signal displeasure at his attitude. “Sir, I wish only to help Polly, my niece, though I never revealed our relationship to the Adamses. Nor did I disclose that Polly’s sailing was conspired by two half-sisters, Elizabeth Eppes and myself. I hope to persuade you to love the child unconditionally as you loved my late half-sister, Martha Wayles. I’m sorry you haven’t discerned I’m helping you as well.”
My invoking family ties exhausted me. I rose and stepped away hurriedly, heels echoing in the entry hall. I aimed for the corridor others had used. My stomach knotted as the impact of my defiance registered. But what was he going to do to me? Except for his two schoolgirls, Jimmy and I were all the family he had in this place.
I considered the possibility he’d return me to the plantations by hiring me out to an emigrant family ready to sail. That was worth our weighing if his attitude remained prickly, except for what I learned from Jimmy the following day.