# Think Tank > History >  Jefferson - Dishonorable & a Hypocrite?

## Patriot123

Now I've always liked Jefferson - he nearly single handedly built this country, and was the best president we ever had, in my opinion. However I routinely hear many liberals argue that Jefferson was a "hypocrite," and as such a dishonorable man.
The main arguments I've heard are essentially that...

A) Jefferson was a slave owner, and as such is a hypocrite for writing "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence.
B) That he was opposed to the constitution. [Fact or fiction?]
C) He had an affair with one of his slaves, and as such is dishonorable.

Is it then true that Jefferson was a hypocrite and a dishonorable man? Or is there an argument against these arguments, mainly argument A?

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## evilfunnystuff

http://www.jeffersonhour.org/?id=16&...nload+the+Show
check out 671	Declaration of Independence ive heard clay discuss #1 before and he should touch on it in this episode

i have never heard the accusation hes against the constitution

ive heard 3 before but honestly dont have any idea of its truthieness

edit also check out 734	Prejudice and Parties

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## dannno

The world is a lot different now that we know it's borders. We are familiar with it's continents and inhabitants. 

A long time ago, man did not know the bounds to land. He did not know of his relation to the African. Maybe "God" was just a god for white people, and there was no such thing as "earth", just a vast expanse of land and ocean that goes on forever. The point is we were living in a different world. 

We enslave animals like horses, oxen and cows, but it is abhorrent to enslave another human being. We could just as easily have the belief system that it is abhorrent to enslave animals, and a lot of the liberals and progressives of today would be made to look pretty evil for supporting animal slavery all this time.

Those issues are rough to deal with. I am pretty sure that the history of men like Jefferson and Andrew Jackson have been tampered with by the powers that be over the centuries.. I mean, go ask a liberal about what a "great guy" Andrew Jackson was!! I saw a list one time of all the awful things they claimed he did, I don't think a man could accomplish all those things in one life!!

It's important to stress who he actually was. His quotes about banking institutions, individual liberty and his battles with Hamilton over centralized power.

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## mediahasyou

Jefferson is definitely a lesser of many evils.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Now I've always liked Jefferson - he nearly single handedly built this country, and was the best president we ever had, in my opinion. However I routinely hear many liberals argue that Jefferson was a "hypocrite," and as such a dishonorable man.
> The main arguments I've heard are essentially that...
> 
> A) Jefferson was a slave owner, and as such is a hypocrite for writing "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence.
> B) That he was opposed to the constitution. [Fact or fiction?]
> C) He had an affair with one of his slaves, and as such is dishonorable.
> 
> Is it then true that Jefferson was a hypocrite and a dishonorable man? Or is there an argument against these arguments, mainly argument A?


A) Whoever told you that he was a slave owner didn't give you the rest of the story.  He inherited his slaves from his father in law, and set them free as soon as he could.  B) He was opposed to the way the Hamiltonians/Federalists wrote the constitution, yes.  C) I don't have any proof of this either way, but I doubt it.

If you look at how he handled his presidency, you could call him somewhat hypocritical (the war of 1812, etc).  But to my knowledge, he was a pretty principled guy. 

Jefferson FTW!

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## evilfunnystuff

> If you look at how he handled his presidency, you could call him somewhat hypocritical (the war of 1812, etc).  But to my knowledge, he was a pretty principled guy. 
> 
> Jefferson FTW!


and the louisiana purchase

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## mediahasyou

the Louisiana purchase, the embargo acts, the Barbary pirate war were all non-libertarian and unconstitutional acts.

The biggest lie is that a Libertarian is incorruptible.  Libertarians do no possess super powers, they possess the same desires we all do as humans.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Libertarians are no exception from this rule.

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## dannno

> A) Whoever told you that he was a slave owner didn't give you the rest of the story.  He inherited his slaves from his father in law, and set them free as soon as he could.


I dunno if he ever set them free, unless you can find a source?

Wikipedia has some interesting stuff though..





> Jefferson owned many slaves over his lifetime. Some find it baffling that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves yet was outspoken in saying that slavery was immoral and it should be abolished. Biographers point out that Jefferson was deeply in debt and had encumbered his slaves by notes and mortgages; he chose not to free them until he finally was debt-free, which he never was.[73] Jefferson seems to have suffered pangs and trials of conscience as a result.[74] He wrote about slavery, "We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."[75]






> According to a biographer, Jefferson "believed that it was the responsibility of the state and society to free all slaves."





> In his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson condemned the British crown for sponsoring the importation of slavery to the colonies, charging that the crown "has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere." However, this language was dropped from the Declaration at the request of delegates from South Carolina and Georgia.

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## evilfunnystuff

> the Louisiana purchase, the embargo acts, the Barbary pirate war were all non-libertarian and unconstitutional acts.
> 
> The biggest lie is that a Libertarian is incorruptible.  Libertarians do no possess super powers, they possess the same desires we all do as humans.
> 
> Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Libertarians are no exception from this rule.


4. Dont trust your leaders. That applies to Freedom Force as well as in politics. Dont expect them to be saints. Most of them are corruptible under the right circumstances. Your job is to watch them like a hawk. Dont let them violate the Creed or this Code of Conduct. Call attention to their errors, when necessary. If violations are serious, mobilize the power to remove them. 

http://www.freedom-force.org/freedom...ion=membership

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## angelatc

Nobody will ever prove or disprove that Jefferson had sex with a slave.  However, if he didn't, his brother, nephews or cousin did.

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## heavenlyboy34

> the Louisiana purchase, the embargo acts, the Barbary pirate war were all non-libertarian and unconstitutional acts.
> 
> The biggest lie is that a Libertarian is incorruptible.  Libertarians do no possess super powers, they possess the same desires we all do as humans.
> 
> Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Libertarians are no exception from this rule.


The war against the Barbary Pirates was declared with consent of Congress, last I checked-so IMHO it was constitutional.  But on the other stuff you're right, to my knowledge.

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## heavenlyboy34

> I dunno if he ever set them free, unless you can find a source?
> 
> Wikipedia has some interesting stuff though..


My source is Grolier's Encyclopedia on that issue.

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## Mitt Romneys sideburns

Barbary *pirates*.  Constitutional authority is granted for dealing with pirates.

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## paulitics

As crazy as it seems,  due largely to ignorance, the debate over whether Africans were human or animal was debated for at least a couple of centuries before Jefferson's day.  

As I'm sure money blinded people's better judgement, those higher up, even among the most intelligent argued that Africans were simply animals, and it was their right to own them like cattle.   Many of the slave traders were extremely rich and powerful and did not want slavery to end at this time.    I would say there may have been propaganda occuring to perpetuate the lie that Africans were not fully men.  Remember, money and power was at play. 

Slavery did not begin with Jefferson, but was likely on its way out with Jefferson.   Jeffersson did own slaves, yes, but society pressured most distinguished white men to own slaves at this time.  It may have been political suicide to stand up for the slaves during this time period.  People should not take Jefferson out of context of history.   

Societies always become ignorant.  Today, I would say we are very ignorant about Muslims.  Would a muslim who was outspoken about his religion be elected president, or even to the Senate.  No, because there is this stigma that if you are a muslim you are automatically terorist, which is  just as asinine as thinking Africans are less than human.

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## M House

I'm pretty sure Jefferson had sex with one his slaves and had several children with her. I watched a special on it they did like DNA testing and everything. Actually it's really strange and kinda complicated. This was after his wife died and she was actually related to his dead wife. I'll look up some more details but yeah I wanna be more accurate about that.

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## M House

Yeah it's very true check it out. It's pretty hard to refute a Y chromosome link. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/...jefferson.html

Here's the proposed family explaining the link better: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...c/genemap.html

It's suspected that he had children with Sally Hemings who was the half sister of his dead wife. The male offspring of this supposed line have Y chromosomes that match then descendants of Thomas Jefferson's uncle.

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## heavenlyboy34

> I'm pretty sure Jefferson had sex with one his slaves and had several children with her. I watched a special on it they did like DNA testing and everything. Actually it's really strange and kinda complicated. This was after his wife died and she was actually related to his dead wife. I'll look up some more details but yeah I wanna be more accurate about that.


If you find some proof of that, please post it.  This rumor has been around for a long time, but it's usually bandied by self-loathing white limousine liberals who feel better about themselves after trashing Jefferson, et. al.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Yeah it's very true check it out. It's pretty hard to refute a Y chromosome link. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/...jefferson.html
> 
> Here's the proposed family explaining the link better: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...c/genemap.html
> 
> It's suspected that he had children with Sally Hemings who was the half sister of his dead wife. The male offspring of this supposed line have Y chromosomes that match then descendants of Thomas Jefferson's uncle.


Interesting stuff.  Does this make him dishonorable?  I don't know enough about the social standards of that time to judge.

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## M House

Sounds like they had a fairly normal relationship with the children being freed later. Though the Hemings have only been recently accepted at the family reunions having been blocked until very recently like either 1999 or 2000. Considering many of the Jefferson descendants themselves are at fault for this I bet more than a few were a bit bitter.

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## Chosen

Most inquiries, such as in the instance of the creator of this thread are in themselves propaganda. This Marxist idea of always trying to destroy our sense of history is old and stale. Take the words of Jefferson below, you will be hard pressed to find a better man in history. Why? Because he was also a man of action.




> Duties of Citizens
> 
>         What duty does a citizen owe to the government that secures the society in which he lives? What can it expect and rightly demand of him in support of itself? A nation that rests on the will of the people must also depend on individuals to support its institutions in whatever ways are appropriate if it is to flourish. Persons qualified for public office should feel some obligation to make that contribution. If not, public service will be left to those of lesser qualification, and the government may more easily become corrupted. 
> 
>     "No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only. If our government ever fails, it will be from this weakness." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1814.
> 
>     "Every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Gilmer, 1816. ME 15:24
> 
>     "A good citizen should take his stand where the public authority marshals him." --Thomas Jefferson to Mme D'Auville, 1790. ME 8:16
> ...

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## Chosen

I truly believe leftists can be fixed thru education. Those who cannot can be assisted by charity, there are many organizations which volunteer their services to the learning disabled.




> The Sovereignty of the People
> 
>         The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, "In free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns." The ultimate powers in a society, therefore, rest in the people themselves, and they should exercise those powers, either directly or through representatives, in every way they are competent and that is practicable. 
> 
>     "The whole body of the nation is the sovereign legislative, judiciary, and executive power for itself. The inconvenience of meeting to exercise these powers in person, and their inaptitude to exercise them, induce them to appoint special organs to declare their legislative will, to judge and to execute it. It is the will of the nation which makes the law obligatory; it is their will which creates or annihilates the organ which is to declare and announce it. They may do it by a single person, as an emperor of Russia (constituting his declarations evidence of their will), or by a few persons, as the aristocracy of Venice, or by a complication of councils, as in our former regal government or our present republican one. The law being law because it is the will of the nation, is not changed by their changing the organ through which they choose to announce their future will; no more than the acts I have done by one attorney lose their obligation by my changing or discontinuing that attorney." --Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, 1799. ME 10:126
> 
>     "Every nation has a right to govern itself internally under what forms it pleases, and to change these forms at its own will; and externally to transact business with other nations through whatever organ it chooses, whether that be a King, Convention, Assembly, Committee, President, or whatever it be. The only thing essential is, the will of the nation." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Pinckney, 1792. ME 9:7
> 
>     "[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1813. ME 19:197
> ...

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## Chosen

On Republican Values:



> Republican Principles
> 
>         The best form of government that has ever been devised for protecting the rights of the people has been found to be the republican form. While not perfect, it nevertheless gives a voice to the people and allows them to correct the course of government when they find it moving in a wrong direction. 
> 
>     "It must be acknowledged that the term republic is of very vague application in every language... Were I to assign to this term a precise and definite idea, I would say purely and simply it means a government by its citizens in mass, acting directly and personally according to rules established by the majority; and that every other government is more or less republican in proportion as it has in its composition more or less of this ingredient of direct action of the citizens. Such a government is evidently restrained to very narrow limits of space and population. I doubt if it would be practicable beyond the extent of a New England township." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:19
> 
>     "A democracy [is] the only pure republic, but impracticable beyond the limits of a town." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1816. ME 15:65
> 
>     "The first shade from this pure element which, like that of pure vital air cannot sustain life of itself, would be where the powers of the government, being divided, should be exercised each by representatives chosen either pro hac vice, or for such short terms as should render secure the duty of expressing the will of their constituents. This I should consider as the nearest approach to a pure republic which is practicable on a large scale of country or population. And we have examples of it in some of our State constitutions which, if not poisoned by priest-craft, would prove its excellence over all mixtures with other elements; and with only equal doses of poison, would still be the best." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:19
> ...

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## Chosen

The three initial points/"questions" are nothing but immature blather.

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## Danke

He wrote about how it would be cruel to just free them one day into society, to make it on their own, after living in a life of slavery.  He wrote about setting up their own country out west and providing funding until they were self sufficient.  He did ponder the task of how to humanely end slavery, not just the legal aspect.

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## nate895

> the Louisiana purchase, the embargo acts, the Barbary pirate war were all non-libertarian and unconstitutional acts.
> 
> The biggest lie is that a Libertarian is incorruptible.  Libertarians do no possess super powers, they possess the same desires we all do as humans.
> 
> Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Libertarians are no exception from this rule.


I am not going to disagree with the Louisiana purchase, but I support it. The embargo was necessary because they were impressing our citizens into their navy through force. As for the Barbary Pirate wars, they were attacking our citizens ships, and the primary peacetime purpose of the navy is protecting citizens against pirates.

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## M House

Not sure about the first two but evidence seems to very strongly suggest he had children with a slave. Enough to finally get them to the family reunion, but not enough apparently to do it without having a family spat first.

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## nate895

> Now I've always liked Jefferson - he nearly single handedly built this country, and was the best president we ever had, in my opinion. However I routinely hear many liberals argue that Jefferson was a "hypocrite," and as such a dishonorable man.
> The main arguments I've heard are essentially that...
> 
> A) Jefferson was a slave owner, and as such is a hypocrite for writing "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence.
> B) That he was opposed to the constitution. [Fact or fiction?]
> C) He had an affair with one of his slaves, and as such is dishonorable.
> 
> Is it then true that Jefferson was a hypocrite and a dishonorable man? Or is there an argument against these arguments, mainly argument A?


A) He owned slaves, and he admitted to being a hypocrite because of it in his letters. It was quite a conundrum for Southerners until it was abolished. It was impossible to free them because they had nowhere to go, and they couldn't keep them enslaved because they felt like hypocrites.

B) So did Patrick Henry.

C) It is possible that Ms. Hemmings was Martha Jefferson's half-sister, and it is believed that they had a real romantic relationship, not a slave-master pseudo-rape.

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## Brooklyn Red Leg

> A) Jefferson was a slave owner, and as such is a hypocrite for writing "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence.


Not at all. 




> B) That he was opposed to the constitution. [Fact or fiction?]


Fact, as he and the other Anti-Federalists knew that Hamilton would bring about a nightmare government ruled by the mercantile-banking class.....which is our exact problem now. If not for the Anti-Federalists, there would have been no Bill of Rights.




> C) He had an affair with one of his slaves, and as such is dishonorable.


Not only never proven, but the DNA evidence doesn't even come from Jefferson himself, but from a near relative.

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## nate895

> Not only never proven, but the DNA evidence doesn't even come from Jefferson himself, but from a near relative.


There were only 17 people alive at the time it could have come from, and only one of them was around anywhere near the likely dates of conception.

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## M House

Well they can't exactly get DNA evidence from TJ himself to prove 100 percent conclusively can they?

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## M House

Haha can't believe it some of the Jefferson's are still fighting about it today. Even more interesting it appears some of the Jeffersons are already descended from a Eston Hemings Jefferson.

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## wizardwatson

If your slave doesn't get sex from you, where are they going to get it from?  And what's the fun in owning a slave if you have to agree not to have sex with it?  I would think that would be half the reason for getting a slave.



Seriously though, people deify the 'founding fathers' too much.  They weren't Gods, they masturbated, picked their nose, took dumps, scratched their ass and farted just like the rest of you.  Everyone talks about the precious founding fathers all the time and no one talks about the actual soldiers, the farmers and young boys who actually picked up weapons and kicked ass.  

Ron Paul Supporters are like those young ass kickers who $#@!ed the British up.  We aren't those land owning aristocrats who wrote the Constitution.  Only a few of them are even worth giving honorable mention.  Jefferson being one.

And Jefferson is cool.  If AJ Nock thought he was cool, he was cool.  End of story.

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## M House

Yeah, I guess we're not getting the picture. There's a hot female thrown in your face and you're told she's yours and will do anything you say. What's the first thing that comes to mind?

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## Chester Copperpot

> The war against the Barbary Pirates was declared with consent of Congress, last I checked-so IMHO it was constitutional.  But on the other stuff you're right, to my knowledge.


Yeah, It took me a while to figure this one out too, But like usual, if Ron Paul sayeth, its the truth.. I eventually found out with the help on people on here actually. The Barbary wars were constitutional as the uses of force were all authorized by Congress..

Just FYI, thats alot different than today even though they say "Congress authorized the use of force." Nowadays, Congress doesnt authorize anyhthing.. they just give their power to declare war to the president and let HIM decide when and/or if he wants to go to war. Big difference.

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## Chester Copperpot

> Yeah, I guess we're not getting the picture. There's a hot female thrown in your face and you're told she's yours and will do anything you say. What's the first thing that comes to mind?


Ask her if she's been treated well, if shes hurt at all, and if she is hungry.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Yeah, It took me a while to figure this one out too, But like usual, if Ron Paul sayeth, its the truth.. I eventually found out with the help on people on here actually. The Barbary wars were constitutional as the uses of force were all authorized by Congress..
> 
> *Just FYI, thats alot different than today even though they say "Congress authorized the use of force." Nowadays, Congress doesnt authorize anyhthing.. they just give their power to declare war to the president and let HIM decide when and/or if he wants to go to war. Big difference.*


qft

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## M House

> Ask her if she's been treated well, if shes hurt at all, and if she is hungry.


She's a hot personal female slave, why wouldn't you treat her well and give her good food? Heck I'd treat her better than me, bathe her regularly, take her out for exercise, give her a choice of sexy clothes, make sure her diet was balanced.....

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## Conza88

> the Louisiana purchase, the embargo acts, the Barbary pirate war were all non-libertarian and unconstitutional acts.
> 
> The biggest lie is that a Libertarian is incorruptible.  Libertarians do no possess super powers, they possess the same desires we all do as humans.
> 
> Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Libertarians are no exception from this rule.


*Except Ron Paul.*

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## paulpwns

Freeing your slave wasn't a productive thing to do. Jefferson treated his slaves like family knowing that if he " freed" them, they would be captured and re-sold into a situation far worse than he provided. That is like blaming, cavemen for beating their wives. It was just the times.

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## Pericles

> Yeah it's very true check it out. It's pretty hard to refute a Y chromosome link. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/...jefferson.html
> 
> Here's the proposed family explaining the link better: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...c/genemap.html
> 
> It's suspected that he had children with Sally Hemings who was the half sister of his dead wife. The male offspring of this supposed line have Y chromosomes that match then descendants of Thomas Jefferson's uncle.


You need to do some more reading -

http://www.tjheritage.org/scholars.html

The story is first published in 1802, and DNA testing rules out Jefferson as the father of the first 4 Hemmings children. Thus, the story that Jefferson fathered her first child is shown to be clearly false. Jefferson could have fathered the last child, born in 1808, but one must judge as to whether a liaison would take place after the story had been published, when critics would be looking for some substantiation. Also present at Montecello, between 8 and nine months before the birth of Hemmings last child, were Jefferson's brother, and two nephews, which also share (with over a dozen other Jefferson males living in the region) the same chromosome which was found in the DNA test. 

And the only way to know for certain is comparing genetic material from Thomas Jefferson himself with that of descendants of Eston Hemmings.

Those interested in history may find the following facts of interest. Sally is born in 1773, and comes to live at Monticello in 1776. She is rumored to be the half sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha married to Jefferson in 1772. The rumor is that Martha's father is also Sally's father. Thomas and Martha had 6 children (1) Martha born 1772, (2) Jane born and died 1775, (3) a son born and died 1777, (4) Maria born 1778, (5) Lucy born 1780 and died in 1781, and (6) Lucy Elizabeth born 1782. Martha Jefferson (wife) dies in 1782. It would seem that Thomas had little problem fathering children.

Now, let us pick up the trail of Sally. She is 11 years old when Jefferson leaves for France in 1784. Sally arrives in France in 1787 at 14 years old. The Jefferson family and Hemmings return to Monticello in 1790, as Jefferson becomes Secretary of State. At this point we can pick up the "affair" which is supposed to have produced a son, by tradition his name is Thomas Woodson. No record of his birth exists at Monticello, but the births of Sally's 4 children (Beverly 1798), (Harriet 1801), (Madison 1805), and (Eston 1808) are kept. Sally had 2 other children that died shortly after birth. Sally seemed to have little trouble getting pregnant.

DNA testing ruled out Jefferson as the father of Thomas Woodson, and confirmed that Eston had been fathered by a Jefferson.

The other leading possibility as the father of Eston, is Randolph Jefferson.

From http://www.angelfire.com/va/TJTruth/background.html

"Randolph, named for his maternal Randolph family, was a widower and between wives when shortly after his wifes death, Sally became pregnant with her first child, Harriet I. It had been almost six years since her arriving at Monticello from Paris, thus, we can see that there was no long term love affair between Thomas and Sally. She continued having children until 1808 when Eston was born. Randolph Jefferson would marry his second wife the next year, 1809, and would have a child, John, born about 1810. Three of Sally Hemings children, Harriet, Beverly and Eston (the latter two not common names), were given names of the Randolph family who had earlier owned Randolphs plantation, Snowden, and who had received it as his inheritance."

Eston was born when Thomas Jefferson was 64 and Sally was 35.

The DNA evidence clearly shows the Thomas Woodson was not the result of an affair between Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson, thus the story that Jefferson fathered a son by Hemmings as the result of such an affair is shown to be false. Notice the gap in births attributed to either Thomas or Sally from 1790 to 1795, when neither had any other gap of more than 3 years between children, and that gap was when Sally was in her 30's.

Finally, Abigail Adams described Sally, when she arrived in London in 1787 as needing more care than the child she was attending. Jefferson had asked for another servant instead of Sally to accompany the children, which indicates she had not made a favorable impression.... but as with all personalty assessments of historical figures, it is speculation and not fact.

Descendants of Madison did not agree to provide samples for testing.

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## Truth Warrior

Though the United States is a young country, Americans are prone to ancestor worship. We learn not merely to admire the Founding Fathers but also to revere the Founding Fathers, who are sometimes described as if they had been touched directly by God. We question our governors, including our judges, but we rarely question our founding document. We feel free to ridicule or to despise the decisions of the Supreme Court, but not those of the Founders (putting slavery to one side).

*Toward the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson expressed some exasperation about this state of affairs. He complained of those who "look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched." He noticed with evident alarm that people were ascribing "to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human," and seeing "what they did to be beyond amendment." He proclaimed that the founding generation "was very like the present, but without the experience of the present." Insisting that the Constitution should be rethought every generation, Jefferson offered a plea to posterity: "Let us not weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself.... The dead have no rights."*

James Madison had a fundamentally different view. Fearing the effects of popular passions, and insisting that the Constitution had been adopted under unusually favorable historical circumstances, Madison wanted the founding document to be a kind of fixed star, immunized from the vicissitudes of history and the pressures of endless public scrutiny. In his words, "frequent appeals to the public" would remove "that veneration which time bestows on every thing, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability." To be sure, Madison accepted the amendment process set out in Article V of the Constitution, which allows the Constitution to be changed after the approval of three-fourths of the states. But constitutional amendments are extremely difficult to produce; they are deliberately reserved, in Madison's own words, for "great and extraordinary occasions."

http://ignoblus.newsvine.com/_news/2...s-constitution

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## heavenlyboy34

Jefferson FTW! 




> Though the United States is a young country, Americans are prone to ancestor worship. We learn not merely to admire the Founding Fathers but also to revere the Founding Fathers, who are sometimes described as if they had been touched directly by God. We question our governors, including our judges, but we rarely question our founding document. We feel free to ridicule or to despise the decisions of the Supreme Court, but not those of the Founders (putting slavery to one side).
> 
> *Toward the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson expressed some exasperation about this state of affairs. He complained of those who "look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched." He noticed with evident alarm that people were ascribing "to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human," and seeing "what they did to be beyond amendment." He proclaimed that the founding generation "was very like the present, but without the experience of the present." Insisting that the Constitution should be rethought every generation, Jefferson offered a plea to posterity: "Let us not weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself.... The dead have no rights."*
> 
> James Madison had a fundamentally different view. Fearing the effects of popular passions, and insisting that the Constitution had been adopted under unusually favorable historical circumstances, Madison wanted the founding document to be a kind of fixed star, immunized from the vicissitudes of history and the pressures of endless public scrutiny. In his words, "frequent appeals to the public" would remove "that veneration which time bestows on every thing, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability." To be sure, Madison accepted the amendment process set out in Article V of the Constitution, which allows the Constitution to be changed after the approval of three-fourths of the states. But constitutional amendments are extremely difficult to produce; they are deliberately reserved, in Madison's own words, for "great and extraordinary occasions."
> 
> http://ignoblus.newsvine.com/_news/2...s-constitution

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## M House

TJ was stud and why wouldn't he have had a relationship with the half-sister of his dead wife? He swore to never marry another woman after she died.... While it appears wrong and even disturbing, if Sally had been there why not? She would've been much like a younger version of the woman he loved. They can't fully test the DNA to confirm it for alot of her children, as there would be only one potential male descendant of the mating to do even the Y chromosome match. You can only get the rest of the picture if you got the DNA from the man himself.

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## Omphfullas Zamboni

is Ron Paul more Jefferson or Madison?

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## Truth Warrior

> is Ron Paul more Jefferson or Madison?


 *I'd say say Madison, though Ron's favorite is John Adams.*

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## M House

Doesn't sound too bad I always though Madison was way better than Adams, both of them put together. Though I'm not sure what the general consensus here on that is....

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## SeanEdwards

TJ was a hypocritical prick.

But despite that he got a few things right. And he tried to atone for at least some of his sins before he died, so at least he had a conscience.

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