Monitor; All the News of the World US reaction to the confirmation that Thomas Jefferson had a child with a slave

THOMAS JEFFERSON was human. Now, thanks to the same DNA testing employed to expose Bill Clinton's frailties, we learn that the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States fathered a child with a slave. It is reassuring, indeed liberating, news that the loftiest and most inspirational American of them all was also torn by the torments and rewards of more base pursuits. Perhaps we'll begin at last to treat our heroes as the complex human animals they've always been, driven by lust as well as idealism, capable of immoral disarray in their personal lives while performing perfectly on the public stage. They should still be heroes for what they accomplished, but they should never be worshiped as idols.

Los Angeles Times

HISTORIANS' ATTEMPTS to arrive at a more truthful view of Jefferson were dismissed as racially motivated. This is what happens when we refuse to acknowledge contradictions in our past and present lives and in the behaviour of those we admire. Knowing that the greatest of our founding fathers was a miscegenist should energise the recent shift away from the either-or definition of "race" that has historically underpinned the caste- like segregation of African-Americans, toward a more blended and self- chosen definition of group identity. No society has ever solved its ethnic problems without intermarriage, and America will be no exception.

The New York Times

WAS JEFFERSON a hypocrite for stating his opposition to racial mixing while having a relationship with a black woman? Within his time and perhaps within his heart and hers, maybe not. The genetic study of Jefferson's family tells us about one relationship in an extraordinary public man's private life. It also tells us about the diversity of the American family and how intertwined are the black and white experiences. Unfortunately, too many historians erased those vital black faces. We welcome Sally Hemings and her children to their rightful place in the record.

Boston Globe