Mayer Serves on Jefferson Commission

Also read: Postmodernism and the Jefferson-Hemings Myth by David Mayer.

As noted on page 2, TOC advisor David Mayer was a member of the Scholars Commission on the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings Matter, which released its final report in Washington, D.C., on April 12. For the interested, this Logbook items offers more information about the activities and results of the commission.

According to Mayer, a "photo op" was held at the Jefferson Memorial on April 12, to coincide with the release of the commission's report. This was followed by a press conference and "backgrounder" at the National Press Club. On the broadcast front, the story was covered by CNN Headline News plus over ninety stations. Unfortunately, many of the TV reports were on at odd hours. But both AP and UPI had wire stories on the commission report, Mayer says, along with many news magazines, including U.S. News & World Report. One of the best print reports was in the Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Virginia), which provided excellent news coverage, plus a good editorial.

Perhaps the most biased "news" report came from the New York Times. A three-sentence, 82-word item by reporter Nicholas Wade was buried in the round-up feature called "National Briefing." The first sentence reported the commission's conclusion that Jefferson's younger brother Randolph was more likely the father of one of Sally Heming's children. The second sentence said that a genetic test published in 1998 "seemed to settle the issue of Thomas Jefferson's paternity." But that test, by its very nature, could not have distinguished between the two brothers. The third sentence said flatly: "Despite the new study by scholars at Virginia, Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Brown universities, historical evidence points to the president." End of story.

Fortunately, all of the commission reports — the summary report, Mayer's concurring report, and the other individual reports (including the chairman's 350-page report) — have been posted on the commission's Web site: http://www.mindspring.com/~tjshcommission. Mayer reports that there is also talk of a book based on the commission's work.

Lastly, Mayer has passed along to TOC a portion of a letter that he sent to members of the Oppenheimer Society, an e-mail list of libertarian scholars created and maintained by Randy Barnett. Several Oppenheimer members had been discussing the Jefferson-Hemings issue and the Scholars Commission's report, questioning whether commission members were merely conservative "defenders" of Jefferson or even blind Jefferson worshippers. But, as Mayer put it in his cover letter to TOC: "Their basic question was: Who cares? Why should it really matter — especially to libertarians — whether Jefferson had a sexual relationship with his slave Sally Hemings? Why is it significant?"

"Because I think TOC members might wonder the same (or similar) questions, I'm passing on to you the answer I gave to members of the Oppenheimer Society list." What follows is a truncated and slightly edited version of Mayer's letter.

"'First, I'd like to emphasize that the commission is neither a bunch of conservatives nor a bunch of Jefferson worshippers. It is a truly diverse group (and I mean 'diverse' in a real sense, referring to ideological diversity, although it does so happen that we're not all white males), a mix of libertarians, conservatives, and left-liberals in our ideological orientations. While some of us are genuine admirers of Jefferson, others of us (including most notably Professor Forrest McDonald, who calls himself an 'unreconstructed Hamiltonian Federalist') are definitely not. What we do all have in common is a commitment to good, objective standards of historical scholarship — standards which have not been followed (and indeed are ignored) by proponents of the thesis that Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings's children. It is true that the group that sponsored the formation of our commission (the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society) is composed of Jefferson 'defenders' (some of them Jefferson descendents) who view the Hemings paternity allegation as a libel upon Jefferson's character. But what's important is that the commission truly functioned independently of the Heritage Society, as our report explains. Indeed, the chairman of our commission, Prof. Robert Turner of the University of Virginia met John Works, president of the Heritage Society, for the first time just before our press conference [on April 12]. Most important, we decided on the composition of the commission itself, and members of the Heritage Society were quite unhappy, I understand, to learn that a known Jefferson-hater like Forrest McDonald would be a member of the commission. As it turns out, it's great he was on the commission. His own individual report notes that "for nearly four decades [he] assumed, without thinking much about it, that the allegations regarding a Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings relationship were founded in fact," but since doing the research associated with the commission's work, he has 'entirely abandoned [his] earlier assumption.' I would hope that members of the Oppenheimer list—many of whom themselves might have been accused of partiality because 'corporate money' has funded some of the classical-liberal organizations with which they've been associated—would understand, more than most academics, that what really matters is the integrity of the scholarly work itself and not whose seed money helped establish it.

"As libertarians, we should all be concerned about [the Jefferson-Hemings] matter as illustrative of the degree to which 'the tyranny of public opinion' continues to govern in America, just as it did in Tocqueville's day. In that sense, the Jefferson myth is like many myths that support the modern world-view: the myth of the 'robber barons,' which led to passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act, among other things; the myth that the 'failures of the market' caused the Great Depression, which led to all the New Deal regulatory agencies; the myth that poverty, too, resulted from market failures—which led to the 'Great Society' programs of LBJ, Nixon, and so forth. The list goes on and on. As libertarians and as scholars, we should all be committed to shattering these myths. And we should support our colleagues who devote their time and energy to myth-shattering."