While the proliferation of talk shows and tabloids has certainly intensified the appetite for scandal by making such stories readily available to a mass market, the primal urge to know about the sexual secrets of the rich or famous is apparently as timeless as the primal urge itself. Long before we learned about the sexual escapades of Presidents Kennedy or Clinton or, before them, Harding and Franklin Roosevelt, there was the story of Jefferson and Sally. Indeed the alleged liaison between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings may be described as the longest-running miniseries in American history.The history of the story itself falls naturally, if not neatly, into three discernible phases. The first was the early nineteenth century, when James Callender published the initial accusations and the Federalist press spread them across the country. Callender’s motives, all historians agree, were scurrilous and vengeful. He probably heard the rumors about miscegenation at Monticello while imprisoned in Richmond—it was a story that had been making the rounds in Virginia for several years—and felt no compunction about reporting the gossip as fact.
