In Defense of Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemings Sex Scandal

“The case [Hyland] makes is persuasive and in my view well presented, and it’s a historically important project.”---Peter Rodman, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, and author of Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush “[Hyland’s] approach to the alleged Jefferson-Hemings relationship is ingenious and he has made what I judge to be an irrefutable case.”—Professor Forrest McDonald, History Professor (Emeritus), University of Alabama, and National Endowment for the Humanities, 16th Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities, author of The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson and The American Presidency: An Intellectual History “Hyland’s well-written book is a breath of fresh air.… In the courtroom where undocumented speculation and hearsay are not allowed, Jefferson will receive a fair trial.”---W. McKenzie Wallenborn, M.D., president of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society and Clinical Professor (Ret.), University of Virginia School of Medicine “As a practicing civil litigator and former prosecutor, Hyland casts a critical lawyer’s eye over the two-hundred-year old question of whether Thomas Jefferson had a romantic, sexual liaison with his servant Sally Hemings. Using what would be acceptable in a court of law as his standard for accuracy, Hyland painstakingly separates revisionist ideology from historical accuracy. In page after page, Hyland dissects just how evidence was manipulated to reach a predetermined yet utterly false verdict of guilty. Thankfully, Hyland’s book once and for all---in a convincingly unemotional fashion---clearly establishes that not Thomas Jefferson, but rather his brother Randolph or one of Randolph’s sons, was the father of Sally Hemings’s children.”---John Works Jr., former president of the Monticello Association and lineal descendant of Thomas Jefferson “A well-written and provocative lawyer’s brief challenging the popular story that Thomas Jefferson fathered a child by his household slave Sally Hemings. Hyland has assembled a mass of forensic evidence to refute the saga much favored by revisionist historians and novelists, who were building on the testimonies of Jefferson’s political enemies from his own lifetime. Like the litigation attorney he is, Hyland argues a formidable case before a jury---readers trying to reach a verdict.”--- Peter Grose, former executive editor at The New York Times and Foreign Affairs and author of Operation Rollback: America’s Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain “Hyland’s book is well researched with material from many sources. It is a powerful insight.… As assistant to Dr. Foster, the DNA study coordinator, I can reveal that the DNA proved only that the Hemings descendant had Jefferson DNA that supported their oral family claim that they descended from a ‘Jefferson uncle,’ meaning Randolph Jefferson.”—Herbert Barger, Jefferson family historian