THE RICHMOND RECORDER
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1 September 1802
It is well known that the man whom it delights the people to honor, keeps, and for many years past has kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves. Her name is SALLY. The name of her eldest son is TOM. His features are said to bear a striking although sable resemblance to those of the president himself. The boy is ten or twelve years of age. His mother went to France in the same vessel with Mr. Jefferson and his two daughters. The delicacy of this arrangement must strike every person of common sensibility. What a sublime example for an American ambassador to place before the eyes of two young ladies!
PAPA KEPT THIS CLIPPING.
It’s here in his wooden filing presses amidst his belongings, as if it were no more than a passing memorandum, or a recipe, or a scrap of poem, and not a devastating exposure that set the political world aflame.
It was also a betrayal, written by James Callender, one of my father’s partisans turned odious blackmailer. So I burn this clipping, even knowing there are a thousand more like it in the world. And worse things were printed after it.
The newspapers brought me and my sister into the scandal directly, offering sympathies for the supposed humiliations my father had visited upon us by forcing us to see illegitimate mulatto sisters and brothers enjoying the same parental affection with ourselves. They asked why Papa hadn’t married a worthy woman of his own complexion. They lampooned him as a bad father, a bad owner, a bad president.
But this first article—the one that William Short showed me—somehow did the most damage. “I’m sorry, Patsy,” William had said. “This is going to be a very difficult time for all of you.”
My hand came to my mouth as my eyes traced over the words a second time. Anger curled inside my belly. Would the entirety of my father’s presidency find him under constant attack? “How could they print such a thing?”
He gave me a sad, sympathetic look. “Because partisanship has made anything fair, which honor and propriety might once have kept quiet.”
Shaking my head, I stared at him. “I don’t . . . how will we . . .”
William looked down for a moment, his brow furrowing as he gathered his thoughts, and then his eyes returned to mine. “Well, do you think it’s possible that your father has been given a rare opportunity? He could simply acknowledge Sally. Bring her out from the shadows—”
“You’ve no idea what you’re saying,” I hissed. Did I not hold in my hands the evidence of exactly why he could never do such a thing? “It would bring down his presidency.”
William lowered his voice, conciliatory. “Even in the short time I’ve been back in this country, I’ve heard about a certain Mr. Bell who recently died and left everything to his wife. Everyone in Charlottesville seems happy to treat Mary Hemings Bell as his widow, and a free white woman.”
Did he think my father could take Sally as his wife? It was the kind of madness only William would advocate, and I tried to fan away my anger with the paper in my hands. “Mr. Bell was a store owner.”
“And your father is the president of the United States. It isn’t the same. I understand, but—”
“No, I don’t think you do understand.”
I don’t think anyone did. Which is why I left William standing in the hall and took the newspaper to my father myself.
My father and I had never had an open discussion about Sally Hemings. It wasn’t our way. But now we’d have to. I tapped only once upon the glass-paned door before unlocking and entering the sanctuary of his cabinet, where Papa sat enthroned upon his whirligig chair, his theodolite aimed at the window behind him like a scepter, a number of books open before him. As president he might be a man of the people, but at home, he was a king in his castle. And, glancing at the newspaper in my hands, he knew exactly why I’d come.
“I intend to say nothing about it, Patsy.”
“But, Papa—”
He pressed his fingers to his temples, as if staving off one of his infamous headaches. “I’ve never allowed myself to be compelled to comment publicly on any private matter.”
Certainly, that was the truth. I’d learned long ago that he would never be compelled to speak about anything he didn’t want to. It was a source of great frustration to me as a girl, but a wonderment now that I was grown. I wished I could follow his example, but I didn’t have the self-discipline. “The Federalists are trying to destroy you with this.”
“They’ve been trying for years. They’ve said I’m a mixed breed, a swindler, a coward. Why, they’ve even said I was dead. This is no different.”
“But this is different. This is—”
True, I thought. Those were lies and this was true.