Stephen O'Connor - Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

As this is all Sally Hemings wanted to hear, she stands up.

“Are you sure you won’t have some tea?” asks Martha.

“No, thank you.”

Martha escorts Sally Hemings to the door and gives her hand a quick, forceful squeeze before saying good-bye.

A week and a half later, Mr. Richardson, the steward, comes to Sally Hemings’s cabin with a letter from Martha, which he reads aloud, in total: “‘Sir, Could you convey at your earliest opportunity to Sally Hemings my father’s expression of sorrow at her recent misfortune — to wit, “Please tell Sally I am sorry to hear of the loss of her child.” Yours, Mrs. Randolph.’”

“Is that all?” asks Sally Hemings.

Mr. Richardson shrugs. Before he leaves, he looks at her as if he has something more to say. In the end he only mutters, “Sorry,” and walks out into the daylight.

Sally Hemings is alone, sitting on the edge of her bed.

Her child , she thinks. Her child?

“No point getting angry at Mr. Jefferson for that,” says her mother. “Might as well get angry at a mule ’cause he stubborn.”

“But he’s not a mule,” says Sally Hemings. “He’s a man. And a man has a choice about what he says and does.”

“I didn’t say he ain’t got no choice. All I said is that anger won’t get you nothing. You got a choice, too, and you got to do what’s good for you — that’s all I’m saying.”

“You mean whatever he does, I’m just supposed to shut up and take it? What kind of choice is that?”

“All I’m saying is you do what’s good for you. He’s a man, and men don’t think about nothing in a woman except pussy. That’s just a fact. Nothing you can do about that. But Mr. Jefferson — seems like, long as you let him get a little every now and then, you in the catbird seat. That’s not so bad, far as I can see.”

“I’ll kill myself first!”

Betty shakes her head wearily. “Oh, baby, ain’t no one ever said being a woman is easy — a colored woman especially.”

It is nearly midnight, and Thomas Jefferson is stretched out in his bed, fully dressed except for stockings and shoes, his legs under the covers and his portable wooden desk in his lap. His fire has burned down to cinders, and his breath is making a bronze fog in the light of the candelabra on his night table. Two letters lie drying on the covers beside him, one to Aaron Burr, asking for his aid in keeping President Adams and the Federalists from launching a full-scale war against France, and the other to James Madison, concerning the deeply troubling rumors that Adams is planning to pass a so-called Sedition Act that would allow him to imprison for treason anyone who published, wrote or even uttered criticism of his government. While the former is the more pressing issue, the latter is by far the more serious, and a clear violation of the most sacred principles articulated in the Declaration and the Constitution.

What Thomas Jefferson feels is more sorrow than outrage. It is beyond his comprehension how Adams, someone he had once so admired and thought a dear friend, would want to arrogate unto himself the powers of a monarch. Not merely is such an ambition a complete repudiation of the most passionate and noble struggle of both their lives, it would seem to indicate that no human being, not even the most idealistic and pure, is immune to the corruptive influence of power.

How might the nation be preserved from the weaknesses of human nature? Only, apparently, through the constant vigilance and fervent efforts of the truest believers in the ideals of democracy and republican government. But if Adams can be so compromised, where are such true believers to be found? Is simple human nature the greatest enemy of government by and for the people? Is democracy even possible if the representatives of the people yield so easily to self-interest? Or is the concentration of power in the hands of the corrupt and greedy few the inevitable and most natural form of human governance? Is this why there have been no true democracies since creation? Is the entire American venture doomed?

Such thoughts have been eating away at his own will to fight ever since his arrival in Philadelphia a week and a half ago. He has found it impossible to sleep for more than two or three hours a night, and whatever he eats passes almost instantly through his body, causing painful turbulence all along the way. He has been alternating almost daily between despairing lethargy and frenzied, not entirely rational or well-coordinated efforts to combat his opponents, solidify bonds with his supporters and gain new allies. This entire day has been devoted to such efforts, and now, even as the fire and his candles burn low and the December cold seeps under the door and through the window sashes, he feels so restless that he can’t imagine going to sleep.

The letter on the wooden desk in his lap is the one from Martha he received three days ago telling him of the death of poor little Harriet. When he first read the news, his head reeled and it seemed minutes before he could breathe again. Of the eight children whom he has sired, Harriet is the sixth to die. For days he has been seeing images of her trying to catch dust motes in a sunbeam, making her satisfied gnar-gnar-gnar moan at Sally Hemings’s breast and taking great effort to articulate her every syllable when, two days before he left Monticello, she told him, “I want to ride with you on your horsey.” How is it possible that this sweet little girl should be gone? He remembers all the dear little ones he has lost, their fluffy heads, their dewy cheeks, their delicate smiles. He remembers Lucy, the second Lucy, who, only two years old, had no comprehension of what he was saying when he went to bid her good-bye before leaving for France. She had looked up at him with those huge, dark brown eyes of hers, some sort of consternation at what he was telling her brewing inside them, but not enough to amount to real understanding. They were the eyes of trust. She was trusting him never to do anything that would bring her sorrow or put her in harm’s way — and he had done both, by turning his back and walking out the door to his carriage loaded with trunks and boxes.

It was the same, he feels, with little Harriet. When he left, he had told himself that her illness was only la grippe , that in a day or two she would be outside again, squealing happily as she ran after squawking chickens. But now it seems to him that he actually knew she was going to die and that the reason he had not postponed his departure for Philadelphia was that he could not bear to witness her death agony or to see her bright and avid little face go pale and permanently still. And thus it was that he had betrayed not only her but also her mother.

His first thought on hearing of Harriet’s death was to write to Sally Hemings directly, through Jimmy. He had even begun the letter but had hardly gotten through his second sentence before he realized how disastrous it would be were so incriminating a document to be intercepted by Adams or Hamilton — especially at this particular juncture. So he tore up the letter and threw it into the fire. There followed a day of despondency, during which he could not bear to even think of the news Martha had conveyed to him. Yesterday he wrote several different letters to Martha, all of them containing descriptions of Harriet’s sweet and lively face — but then, knowing the unpleasant thoughts such description would put into his eldest daughter’s mind, he tore up each letter as soon as he had finished it and threw it into the fire.

And now, as one of his candles has already guttered and gone dark and as, even under his greatcoat, both of his shoulders are shaken by a chill, he decides that the simplest and least lugubrious message is the best: “Please tell Sally I am truly sorry to hear of the loss of dear little Harriet.” Excellent reader of character that she is, Sally Hemings will, he hopes, intuit all the sorrow and sympathy behind his words.