CONVERSATIONS ON JEFFERSON AND JEFFERSONIAN POLITICS
Jefferson, Slavery and Miscegenation
From the H-SHEAR, subject: "Jefferson-Hemings Redux":Robert L. Rumsey:
Let's perform a counterfactual thought experiment. Let's imagine that Jefferson has come down to us as a thoroughly anti-slavery Virginian who never owned slaves, but who was known to have fathered eight children with a slave who apparently belonged to one of his neighbors. Americans ever since had regretted this liaison, but had agreed to overlook it for the sake of Jefferson's reputation, which served as an extremely useful prop for American nationalism. Now imagine that in 1998, evidence surfaced which proved that Jefferson had actually owned a large number of slaves for most of his adult life, including the mother of his eight illegitimate children, but had cleverly concealed his ownership in order to advance his political career as an antislavery icon. The resulting furor made many Americans forget, or almost forget, Jefferson's admitted sexual misbehavior. It was bad enough to have fathered eight children by a slave. But it was absolutely outrageous that this preeminent Founding Father should have bought and sold human beings - buying eight of them, in fact, while he was President - and have asserted, along with numerous other remarks attesting to the desirability of the enslavement of Africans, that slave women were more valuable than slave men because they produced slave children who would add to the capital of their owners. Clearly, we can imagine most Americans agreeing, a re-evaluation of Jefferson's contribution to our political culture was in order.I submit that if the facts about Jefferson had occurred in the above order, our outrage would be justified. But since the reverse is the case, we show little sense of appropriate priority by being upset by out-of-wedlock paternity, yet willing to accept the fact of chattel slave ownership without a significant sense of incongruity. I suspect that many historians feel horrified and embarrassed not because they are appalled by a sexual relationship, but because the new knowledge reinforces the recognition that Jefferson was a lifelong slave owner.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, April 23, 2001.
Eyler Coates
Robert Rumsey poses a hypothetical case for our consideration that is difficult to assimilate. Seeing with the inner eye a man like Jefferson as one who was "thoroughly antislavery" and also the father of a number of slave children, but not owning any slaves, only for us to discover two-centuries later that he did, after all, own a large number of slaves, stretches the imaginations grasp on reality to the breaking point. The premises are so preposterous, it is almost impossible to experience a rational reaction. But let's play along, if we can.
Unlike a corresponding situation today, fathering a large number of children by a slave out of wedlock would probably have been considered more reprehensible in Jefferson's time then owning slaves. Today, the situation is entirely reversed. Owning slaves is unthinkable, but fathering a large number of children out of wedlock is not so bizarre. Questions that naturally arise, such as, "Did he support the children?" only point out the unreality of the scenario. I believe it is difficult to almost impossible for Americans living today to really comprehend the social attitudes towards slavery in the early 1800s. For people living at that time, it was in existence before they came on the scene, and it would be in existence after they left. It was just "the way things are" in the South. For many, slavery was an accepted social institution, much like discrimination was accepted in the South in the early part of the 20th century. Negroes sat in the theater balcony, were not allowed in restaurants, drank from different water fountains, and most people thought nothing of it until after the civil rights movement made them acutely aware of the injustice. Sexual morality, however, was an entirely different thing. To ask, as many do today, Why is having sex with a female slave worse than owning slaves? is a blatant example of undisguised presentism. It was an entirely different matter in Jefferson's time. Therefore, I don't believe that Jefferson having had eight children with a slave would have been as acceptable down through the years as his owning slaves, because owning slaves was considered perfectly acceptable in the South of his time, whereas having eight children with a slave was not. Later generations understood that slavery was wrong and was no longer practiced, but they also realized that things were different in Jefferson's time. Only in this day and time, after the struggle for civil rights and the elimination of racial discrimination, do some educated people actually think that the sophisticated view is to judge Jefferson by the new social perspective that has emerged, not by the social standards under which he lived.
Nevertheless, skipping over that unlikelihood and assuming that it was shown in 1998 that Jefferson did in fact own a large number of slaves, what would be disturbing to a person of broad understanding and not afflicted by presentism would not be the buying and selling of human beings -- that was normal and acceptable in Jefferson's time. The most disturbing element of the whole scenario would be the deceit and hypocrisy. Assuming that people would be outraged by the scenario presented assumes that all would be consumed by presentism. Perhaps they would be -- perhaps they are. It is difficult to tell from such a scenario that goes so completely against reason and reality. The conclusion that we would feel justly outraged if the facts occurred in the order presented seems to be based on a modern presentism that is completely unrecognized. It assumes that there is no excuse for the attitude we have today not being prevalent in Jefferson's time, and that Jefferson was in truth a monster by anyone's proper and rational standards in any age. In fact, this whole scenario seems to be a way of offering presentism as the norm, and of justifying the denigration of Jefferson in accordance with that norm. Mr. Rumsey, on the other hand, seems to be suggesting that we have come to accept Jefferson's slave owning, not because it was acceptable in the time in which he lived, but because we have become accustomed to associating slavery with Jefferson, our rightful sentiments have been dulled by long acquaintance, and we have lost our sense of "appropriate priority." In other words, what Mr. Rumsey is saying is, Presentism is and should be the correct judgment upon all past actions, and people are not to be understood in the context of their times, but in the enlightened views of our times. Though he does not say so overtly, Mr. Rumsey's scenario seems bent on teaching us that those who see Jefferson (and many of the other Founding Fathers also, by the way) as caught up in the social norms of his time are the ones who are lacking in understanding.
There is something haughty and self-serving about this attitude. Besides lending support to a sense of superiority, it allows the holder of views that may be characterized as "presentism" to be somewhat condescending in their attitudes towards the so-called "defenders" of Jefferson, and to treat them as somewhat ignorant persons with unconscious racist tendencies. Operating under this attitude, it is then possible to refer to the "defenders" as "flat-earthers," and to ridicule their efforts as "desperate attempts" to justify Jefferson from the attacks by these persons who think they occupy the high moral ground.
August 3, 2001
From the H-SHEAR, subject: "Jefferson/Hemings":Robert L. Rumsey:
A big stumbling block in the Hemings controversy is our inability to integrate the possible - indeed, probable - Hemings relationship with what we Americans have agreed to believe about Jefferson himself. With occasional exceptions, we have successfully integrated large-scale slaveownership into our conception of Jefferson. We may deplore it, but we've learned to live with it because the implications of rejecting Jefferson as a Founding Father of the America we prefer to imaginatively inhabit are simply too painful. We've learned how to reconcile the libertarian and enlightened yet slaveowning aspects of Jefferson's career by postulating intense personal conflict, political motivation, financial embarrassment, and so on. But we haven't been able ( because we haven't had to) to integrate an illicit sexual relationship with a slave, and the enslaved progeny produced by it, with our familiar understanding of Jefferson. I'm sure that it's easier for many of us to deny such a relationship than to accept it and possibly have to revise our conception of one of our most hallowed founders.How can we adjust our understanding of Jefferson in a way that will allow us to accept the Hemings relationship without forcing us to redefine his place in our pantheon? I believe that we need to regard Jefferson as we would regard any other less celebrated trafficker in human flesh. We should accept his career as a slaveowner without endlessly trying to find excuses for him, and we should also be happy to find evidence that he saw his slaves as human beings - even degraded ones - after all. In this view, the Hemings liaison, if true - and I hope it is - should be placed to his credit. It's possible that genuine affection played a part - perhaps the chief part - in what many of us might otherwise see as a commodification [sic] of a person for sexual purposes, whereas it's not easy to find other than economic and/or racial motives for Jefferson's commodification of his less favored human chattels.
Take, for example, the considerably less celebrated slaveowner, Thomas Thistlewood, a contemporary of Jefferson's who emigrated from England to Jamaica and, starting as an overseer, ended up as a moderately successful planter. To quote Michael Craton, "Empire, Enslavement and Freedom in the Caribbean," 1997, pp. 444-5: "Out of the wilderness of mere materialism he carves his own competence....Even more surprisingly, as the English connection fades, out of the brutalized and disordered community of slaves in his care he finds a lifelong mate, the African born Phibbah, mother of his only son." In Thistlewood's case, the contrast is easy and inevitable. Affection - dare we suppose it might have been love? - is counterposed to ownership. Thistlewood is redeemed, to a degree, by his liaison - in our eyes, if not in those of his contemporaries. But this is possible because his slave ownership has been condemned without qualification.
In Jefferson's case, I believe, our outrage at the hint of a liaison with a slave demonstrates that we can't bring ourselves to similarly condemn his slaveholding. Our options are either to reject the charge entirely, or to accept it and see it as restoring our faith in Jefferson's humanity. But if we accept it, we then have to even more unequivocally place Jefferson in the company of slave owners throughout the Americas, many of whom as a matter of course formed illicit attachments to their favored slaves. It becomes harder than ever to differentiate Jefferson from other willing participants in the slave owning culture. And, not least, it should make us approach with even more caution, and with a greater concern for their political implications, his written remarks that appear to condemn African slavery.
Originally posted on H-SHEAR, Jun 4, 2001.
Eyler Coates
Rumsey continues with his theme that Americans have formed a view of Jefferson that has accustomed itself to Jefferson as a slaveholder, and that those who have trouble with the alleged Hemings relationship do so because they are unable to fit that new information in with the conceptual image they have previously formed. There is nothing in Rumsey's view that allows for the possibility that Jefferson is being viewed by his "defenders" in the context of his time. Indeed, Rumsey's whole premise seems to be an argument, not for viewing Jefferson in the context of his time, but for viewing him in the context of OUR time.
Rumsey seems to assume that if the alleged affair were believed and accepted, these unbelievers would wake up and suddenly realize that Jefferson was a slave owner, and that nothing could excuse him for this. What Mr. Rumsey does not seem to realize is, those who do not believe the affair happened also believe that Jefferson was a man of integrity. It was not the possibility of his having a life-long affair, but the possibility of his being a life-long liar and hypocrite that is so difficult to accept. Moreover, they find plenty of evidence to suggest that Jefferson did NOT have the alleged affair, and that those who believe he did are forced to dismiss all that evidence by calling Jefferson and those associated with him liars and hypocrites. And because there is no direct, solid evidence against Jefferson, calling him and his associates liars and hypocrites becomes a fundamental part of the case made against him.
The truth is, no Jefferson "defender" has ever ignored the fact that Jefferson owned slaves. Jefferson struggled all his life against real opposition to bring the institution of slavery to an end, and his record of actions attempted and taken cannot be matched by any other Founding Father (see Jefferson on Race Relations and Slavery). There were many reasons why he did not, and could not, release his own slaves. One important reason was that he did not believe that simply turning them lose was the best solution. But the idea that his having an affair with a slave he owned would somehow change his whole situation vis-a-vis slavery is never adequately explained by Mr. Rumsey. Rumsey says that we have learned to live with Jefferson as slaveholder because we cannot bear the pain of rejecting him as a Founding Father, but he does not explain how having "an illicit sexual relationship with a slave" would change that and force us to "revise our conception" of him. What effect, exactly, would such a relationship have on our understanding of the immortal words Jefferson penned in the opening section of the Declaration of Independence? Why, really, would such a personal relationship change our view of a government founded on the principles of inalienable rights?
After positing that an acceptance of the affair does have that effect, and without explaining why it should have that effect, Mr. Rumsey proceeds to see some way of adjusting our understanding so that it does not have that effect. How? By looking upon Jefferson as an ordinary trafficker in human flesh, by not trying to find excuses for his slaveholding, and by accepting the relationship to Sally Hemings as evidence that he viewed his slaves as human beings. Perhaps Jefferson had affection for Ms. Hemings. That would be another mark to his credit. The affair, Rumsey suggests, absolves Jefferson to some degree of his sin of slave ownership.
We should recognize that when Mr. Rumsey speaks of "our outrage" at the allegations against Jefferson, he does not include himself. He is speaking of those in our midst who are unable to accept the liaison as an integral part of the Jefferson image, and this comes about because they are unable to condemn his slaveholding. The choice thus becomes, reject the charge entirely, or accept it and confess that Jefferson is a fully flawed human being, no different from all the other slave owners who had sex with their slaves, and also recognize that his writings condemning African slavery were the work of a first-class hypocrite. Thus is Jefferson dethroned.
It is worth noting that in this scenario and its explanations lie the motives of the Jefferson detractors. The affair with Sally Hemings is used to destroy him as much as possible: to reduce him to a liar and a hypocrite and to make his writings suspect. The essential technique for doing this is what is known as a classic case of begging the question: assuming that Jefferson and his associates are liars and hypocrites, and then treating all the evidence that would indicate that Jefferson was not guilty as the product of liars and hypocrites.
August 3, 2001