Appendix The Other Side of the 5-Cent Coin

·Historical materials: Jefferson fled in despair ("Jefferson Biography" (USA) Joseph J. Ellis)

Another cause of Jefferson's academic downfall was a 1970 paper by Eric Metrick reviewing Dumar Malone's and Merrill Peterson's just-published biography of Jefferson.

Metrick asked, slightly offended, whether the adoration and celebration of Jefferson's feats should be delayed.

He asked: "Should we also consider that there were some features of Jefferson's character that were not heroic in any way?"

And it's not just his (Jefferson's) public support for slavery. As governor of Virginia, he failed to organize the militia to fight effectively in the American Revolutionary War. Instead, he abandoned Monticello and rode away before the menacing British troops came. Is this an act of heroism?

How did the American Embargo Act of 1807 fail?

Jefferson insisted that economic sanctions would save the United States from war, despite all indications that the only effect of such sanctions was to destroy the American economy.

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·Historical materials: Jefferson's heart knot ("Jefferson Biography" (USA) Joseph J. Ellis)

Jefferson served as governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781, and the first thing happened during this two-year term.

At this time, Virginia was in a state of wartime emergency, economic, logistical, and political in disarray that would scare even the most savvy politicians. Jefferson himself preferred the quiet life of a study, and it seemed an inopportune time for him to take on the mantle of governor.

Despite Jefferson's best efforts, Virginia's economy was in disarray, and the Continental Army was underrepresented in the state. Jefferson approved an expedition to Detroit by Virginia's best troops, but to no avail.

Soon, the British army under the leadership of Benedict Arnold drove straight from the Chesapeake Bay, swept across Virginia, and burned the capital, Richmond.

To make matters worse, a detachment of cavalry under General Cornwallis rushed to Charlottesville and nearly captured Jefferson at Monticello.

All of Virginia talked about Jefferson's shameful last-minute escape on horseback, which unfairly implied that he was cowardly, negligent, and left the state under the heel of the British army.

The Virginia state legislature even passed a resolution to investigate his actions. The investigation ended in vain, and the final resolution formally acquitted him of all wrongdoing.

While the war unfolded beyond anyone's control, Jefferson as leader was to blame. The taint of defeat stuck with Jefferson all his life, and it always resurfaced when he ran for president twice, in 1796 and 1800.

Jefferson realized that his sensitive personality could not adapt to the harsh demands of leaders in times of crisis. As for the emotional impact of this experience, Jefferson confided to his friends: "This pain is so painful that it will never heal in a lifetime, and it will only be over in the grave."

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Historical Materials: Racism in Jefferson ("Jefferson Biography" (USA) Joseph J. Ellis)

The most offensive aspect of Jefferson has always been his conviction that blacks are inherently inferior and cannot coexist peacefully with whites.

The prosecution's main argument came from historian Paul Finkelman, who was then teaching at Virginia Tech, and the main charge against Jefferson was hypocrisy.

Finkelman points out: "Because Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence, his position on slavery must be judged not by his superiority over the worst powers of his time, but by his leadership. the best of the best.”

The answer was obvious: "Jefferson failed the test."

Finkelman believes that Jefferson was a complete racist. In Jefferson's eyes, it was impossible for blacks and whites to live together as equals. Moreover, Jefferson was not very sincere about abolishing the slave trade or limiting the spread of slavery outside the South, nor was he thinking about how to gradually achieve emancipation.

His beloved Monticello and his extravagant life were all paid for by the hard work of slaves.

According to Finkelman, giving Jefferson the title of "Father of Liberty" is misleading and, at worst, repulsive.

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·Historical materials: Jefferson's illegitimate son ("Jefferson Biography" (US) Joseph J. Ellis)

A team led by Dr. Eugene Foster, a retired University of Virginia pathologist, obtained blood samples containing the Jefferson Y chromosome gene from a living descendant of Jefferson, as well as from several descendants of Hemings. A blood sample was obtained.

The test results were published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature and made available to the media on Halloween 1998. It turned out that Jefferson was a genetic match to Sally's youngest child, Eston Hemings. The probability that the successful pairing of the samples is purely by chance is less than one in a thousand.

This constitutes conclusive evidence that Jefferson and Sally had at least one child together, and combined with previous circumstantial evidence, it is probable that the two had a long-term sexual relationship. If the story of Thomas and Sally was the longest running soap opera in American history, it's finally drawing to a close.

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We all know that Jefferson lived in a conflicted period in the history of the United States, complex and elusive, because he proposed the most inspiring egalitarian ideas in modern history, and his family owned 200 slaves.

Now we know that Jefferson, who declared the prospect of interracial marriage dire and held it to be an important reason for the difficulty of ending slavery, had several children with a slave girl himself,

Before the results of the genetic comparison, people might have thought that Jefferson's life was full of contradictions. Now we can be sure that his life was full of lies.

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We cannot be certain of the emotional status of Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings, but there is reason to believe that it was a long-standing affair, most likely beginning during his last two years in Paris.

They are also very likely to be consensual, at least to some extent, any unequal communication between masters and slaves can be regarded as what you want.

Clearly it (the sexual relationship) fulfilled Jefferson's physical needs, something he could not and would not deny, since the relationship continued for years after being exposed by James Callender.

Still, for the most part, it's a secret, a well-kept secret. No evidence of this relationship can be found in Jefferson's private correspondence.

Jefferson was very good at hiding traces, so it was not until nearly two centuries later that modern scientific advanced genetic testing technology proved that he was the father of Sally's child.

Throughout Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings, Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, lived at Monticello with a large group of Sally's children.

How could she not know about this relationship, even if we do everything humanly can to deny it?

But Martha insisted until her death that Callender's allegations were untrue, defending her father's honor and, in the process of convincing others, actually convincing herself.

Jefferson himself dutifully recorded the names of Sally's children in the list of slaves in the Farm Book, and when they grew up they were treated as slaves as if they had nothing to do with Jefferson—indeed, just Like it's a different person who bore them and owns them.

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·The Mysterious Jefferson (Author of American Story: Bi Lan)

If Washington is a god, then Jefferson is a mystery.

You really don't understand his world.

Not only because the "man of the people" lived like an aristocrat, not only because his luxury was built on slave labor and huge debts, not only because he claimed to believe in the wisdom of the common man but never really had a relationship with the common man Not only because he was the author of the "Declaration of Independence" but did not fire a single shot in the War of Independence, not only because he shouted for freedom but fled in front of the invading British army, not only because he opposed "partisan struggle" but established the United States The first political party, not only because he advocated harmony but supported the bloody French Revolution, not only because he emphasized state rights but greatly strengthened the power of the federal government after he came to power, not only because he opposed the central bank but used it to achieve his ultimate goal Brilliant political achievements, not only because what he said and what he did were completely different from the same channel, but also not only because his principles and actions belonged to two worlds respectively.

A more important manifestation of this mystery is his betrayal of his superiors and friends.

When he served as Secretary of State, he opposed Washington everywhere; when he served as Vice President, the only thing he did for Adams was to remove Adams from office.

In public, he was unfaithful to the president; in private, he was unjust to his friends.

However, he sincerely believed that Washington and Adams had betrayed the principles of the republic and led the United States astray, and he wanted to save this country; He could pass a lie detector with those convictions.

Strangest of all, posterity seems to care more about what he said and wrote than about what he did, and his historical status seems to be based entirely on those 55 glittering English words (“We hold that the following truths are not self-evident...").

Have you ever seen such a lucky enigma?