From: briand@anasazi.com (Brian Douglass)
Subject: Re: jefferson question
Organization: Anasazi Inc Phx Az USA
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 23:49:47 GMT

In article <1992Dec29.180243.25070@news.cs.brandeis.edu> rath@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes:
>In article <1992Dec29.031856.7794@anasazi.com>, briand@anasazi.com (Brian Douglass) writes:
>>In article <1hatrkINNr2n@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> rowell5@cats.ucsc.edu (Corbett Ray Rowell) writes:
>>>
>>>	Please email rowell5@cats.ucsc.edu
>>>	Sorry about spelling errors, modem is acting up.
>>>
>>
>>Selected excerpts from Douglas Wilson's article on Jefferson in the
>>November 1992 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.
>
>I found tyhe order in which you presented this as possibly misleading.

Who the hell asked you?!  Did you read Wilson's article?  I did, and for 
everyone's edification, the excerpts were in EXACTLY the same order as the 
author, Douglas Wilson wrote them.  The original poster asked for information 
on the supposed affair between Jefferson and Hemings, I presented Wilson's 
article as a source that such an affair is generally considered nonexistent
by Jefferson scholars.  A daliance perhaps, but not affair.  And where I 
deleted things it was simply to remove digressions and elongations.  And you 
will notice that I used continuation marks so that anyone who wants could 
trace my deletions.

If you found my excerpting misleading, why didn't you fill in the
continuations?  Perhaps because you never had the article and/or never read
it?

>The substantive disagreement most scholars are talking about is with
>Brodie's assertion that the liason was long-term and happy, not with whether
>or not it happened.  

Ala this excerpt:
". . .  And whereas there are grounds for suspecting a liaison, such as the 
terms of Jefferson's will and the testimony of Hemings son Madison, there are 
no grounds whatever for believing in what Brodie called the "private happiness"
enjoyed by Jefferson and Hemings.  

I think this states very clearly that the question is not did they do
something, but the question of "private happiness" and a long running
liaison.

>By shifting the focus over to Brodie instead of Jefferson and bashing a 
>marginal argument decisively, the author of the excerpts
>seems to discredit by association the whole argument.  

Look, dip-sh*t, I didn't propose anything.  I merely repeated a very
respected Jefferson scholar's writings on the Hemings question, and tried to 
show his theory that what many accept as common knowledge, is dismissed by 
those who study Jefferson for a living.  For instance this excerpt:

"That is pure speculation.  Because Brodie's thesis deals in such unwarranted 
assumptions, the great Jefferson biographer Dumas Malone regarded it as 
'without historical foundation.'"

You want to argue with someone, argue with Wilson, or Malone for that
matter (is he even still alive?).

>TJ's relations w/Sally Hemings, and whether or not they produced a child, are 
>still discussedby scholars, and even "college teachers"--who might 
>nonetheless be dismayed by Brodie's wor.

Fine.  You can take it up with Wilson at Monticello at the conference.  And 
if you'd read the f*ckin' article you'd realize that Wilson's whole point in 
discussing the Brodie affair was the pervasive Presentism now afflicting 
historical figures, in particular Jefferson.