Stephen O'Connor - Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

Only days into his presidency, Thomas Jefferson decreed that henceforth he would deliver all official addresses, including the State of the Union, only in writing, a practice that was honored by all succeeding presidents, up until Woodrow Wilson, who reestablished the tradition of orally presenting the State of the Union address in 1913. Over the remainder of his life, Thomas Jefferson would deliver only one more formal address, at his second inauguration, but this address, like its predecessor, was barely audible.

The festive strains of a handful of violins commence as a glowering, white-wigged, bulldog-mouthed man — Chief Justice John Marshall, it would seem — administers the oath of office to the young actor, whose copper-colored wig now has patches of gray at the temples. But almost instantly, the young actor’s stoic, handsome face fades into a field of yellow, which turns out to be the wall of a brilliantly lit room drifting from right to left like the hull of a ship leaving a dock. A cluster of musicians looms into view, all of them wearing trim blue frock coats and white wigs, and tilting prissy, V-shaped smiles at one another over the strings of their instruments, and then just as suddenly the musicians shrink and fall away, until it becomes clear that they occupy only one corner of an enormous room aglitter with silver, crystal, hundreds of candle flames and the jewelry of women, whose wedding-cake gowns billow and sway around their invisible legs, as they themselves are swirled around the room by yet other trim, bewigged men in blue-and-gray frock coats.

Now it is the actor in the copper-colored wig who looms into view, and he is clearly the tallest and most handsome man in the room and the only one not wearing a white wig. For a moment his face is so large and the room behind him is hurtling so dizzyingly from left to right that Thomas Jefferson feels as if he is an infant being carried in the man’s arms. But then the man’s head swings around, and he is revealed to be dancing with a very young woman, who is also very beautiful in a faintly comical way involving a towering hairstyle and a large black beauty dot stuck to her skin a little below and to the right of her perfect mouth. The beautiful woman’s eyes gleam as she whirls in the light of ever-multiplying candelabras, and her lips are pressed together in a smile unlike any that Thomas Jefferson has ever witnessed, but one that would seem to indicate her smug certainty that she will bed the widower president once the music has ended, the guests have departed and the last of the candles has been snuffed by a less-than-approving servant.

Just as Thomas Jefferson is becoming alarmed at what might happen next, the woman’s towering coiffure looms so large that it makes the whole theater go black, while the notes of a single violin rise above the rest. When, at last, the head whirls away, it turns out to be not that of the woman but of the actor in the copper-colored wig, who is coatless, in an open-necked white shirt, playing a violin — although the balletic movements of his bow are entirely unrelated to the notes resounding in the darkness.

As he shrinks and the room around him grows larger, it becomes clear that he is not dancing with his violin but is seated on a stool at an ordinary wooden table in a mud-chinked log cabin, lit by a solitary candle. Swatches of calico are nailed over the window, and a battered, long-handled frying pan hangs from a rafter.

Finally the room has loomed so large that Thomas Jefferson is able to see that the beautiful young woman with the honey-brown skin is also sitting at the table, smiling guardedly as she watches the actor in the copper-colored wig play the melody he has only just been dancing to. She has no beauty spot. Her loose hair makes a gold-tinged cloud around her face, which is a celebration of convexities and dimples. If the beauty of the woman dancing at the inaugural ball might be characterized by the odor of a very fine French perfume, this young woman’s beauty is like the smell of a forest when rain has just begun to fall.

“There you have it, Sal,” the actor in the copper-colored wig says as he lowers violin and bow to his lap. “You didn’t miss a thing.”

The golden young woman’s smile momentarily broadens but then all at once shuts off. “You play beautifully,” she says as she gets up from the table and turns her back.

She hurries to a window, and now the dark theater is loud with the noises of crickets, peepers and a bullfrog. When the actor in the copper-colored wig comes up to her, his handsome brow furrowed intelligently, she pushes him away. “No,” she says, and hurries to a corner, where she lowers her face into her hands.

All at once the actor in the copper-colored wig is standing behind her. He hesitates for a long moment before lifting his hands lightly to her shoulders. “Oh, Sal,” he says sorrowfully, and for another long moment she seems determined to reject him. But then, in an instant, she has turned, and, revealing just the faintest flash of a smile, she presses her forehead against his chest.

He wraps his arms around her, shifting her head so that now her cheek is against his chest, and she pulls him suddenly closer, until, in silhouette, they form, together, that classic tableau of masculine protectiveness and grateful female vulnerability.

It turns out that Thomas Jefferson is neither dirigible nor cloud nor breeze, but a bronze monument hundreds of feet high, and all of us are trapped inside him, though some of us claim to have come here voluntarily. “He is a great man,” these people argue. “We should be honored to live inside him.” But how can any of us know what sort of man he might be? To us he is only darkness and other people. The air in here is dense with the breath of those who do not eat well and with the corporeal emanations of those who do not wash. We do a lot of blind stumbling, sometimes over the bodies of people who are exhausted, or who have fallen to the floor in a drunken stupor, or who, perhaps, will never again get to their feet. There are a lot of curses, mumbled prayers, grumbles, wails and shocked, infuriated and orgasmic shouting. We are a shabby species, capable of gallows humor, perhaps, but little in the way of greatness. We are venal. We are ignorant. Most of all we are terrified. And we are almost always self-deceived. Why should anyone imagine that Thomas Jefferson might be any different? “Because we fabricated him ourselves,” say those who wish to be hopeful. “Because we built him out of our desires and dreams and our disgust with who we are.”

My brothers, sister Harriet and myself, were used alike. We were permitted to stay about the “great house,” and only required to do such light work as going on errands. Harriet learned to spin and to weave in a little factory on the home plantation. We were free from the dread of having to be slaves all our lives long, and were measurably happy. We were always permitted to be with our mother, who was well used. It was her duty, all her life which I can remember, up to the time of father’s death, to take care of his chamber and wardrobe, look after us children and do such light work as sewing, and Provision was made in the will of our father that we should be free when we arrived at the age of 21 years. We had all passed that period when he died but Eston, and he was given the remainder of his time shortly after. He and I rented a house and took mother to live with us, till her death, which event occurred in 1835.

— Madison Hemings

“Life Among the Lowly, No. 1”

Pike County (Ohio) Republican

March 13, 1873