Presidents, then and now

Just in time for Election Day, a new, more complex view of one of the nation’s founding fathers dumps a mess of uncertainty on the White House doorstep. If Thomas Jefferson can maintain his place in history after confirmation of his affair with a slave, how about the current Oval Office occupant with his intern?

Now Bill Clinton is no Tom Jefferson, but that’s not the point. The point is that on the eve of House impeachment hearings against President Clinton based on his affair with Monica Lewinsky, members of Congress know that one of the most revered figues in American history also had an embarrassing and potentially career-damaging affair. Consider the latest information in Nature magazine: DNA testing by a retired Tufts professor of pathology, Eugene A. Foster, provides strong evidence that the nation’s third president had a child with a young slave, Sally Hemings. President Jefferson is said to have denied such an affair during a mock impeachment trial staged by the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1805.

Does that mean members of Congress should grab chisels and start hacking away at the president’s visage on Mt. Rushmore? That sounds absurd, but only because the passage of time makes it so. Instead, President Jefferson’s reputation will be altered slowly by historians to take into account his affair, especially compared with his written concern that emancipation would lead to unacceptable racial mixing.

All that could be asked of Congress, dealing with the disaster of President Clinton’s personal life, is that it take the same calm view.

Those angriest at President Clinton will be quick to point out differences between the two affairs and, of course, they are not identical. But they contain enough similarities at least to cause impeachment enthusiasts to stop for a moment and consider their actions in the context of history. Just as there will be no public clamor for excluding President Jefferson from the pantheon of American leaders, the public has not, despite Kenneth Starr’s strongest urging, gone into fits of revulsion at President Clinton’s dismal behavior. In a letter accompanying the Nature article, historian Joseph J. Ellis and geneticist Eric S. Lander said it well for both presidents:

“Now, with impeccablke timing, Jefferson reappears to remind us of a truth that should be self-evident,” they wrote. “Our heroes — and especially presidents — are not gods or saints, but flesh-and-blood humans.”