This is precisely what Madison is referring to — although he himself may be entirely unaware of the fact — with all his sanctimonious chatter about “practicality,” “indiscretion” and “extremism.” And so Callender cuts him off in midsentence by getting to his feet and declaring, “I have no business with you, but only with the president.”
In fact, Callender has just abandoned all of the arguments he was formulating over the last several days. Thomas Jefferson may now be insensible to argument, but he will not be insensible to Callender’s physical presence, nor to the threats that Callender now realizes he has no choice but to make. Once a man’s soul has been infected by power, he will heed only those who might help him increase his power and those who might take his power away. Since Callender is no longer welcome as a member of the former category, he will do his damnedest to occupy the latter.
As soon as he emerges from Madison’s office, he makes straight for the corridor down which he can still hear Thomas Jefferson’s voice resounding. But Madison, not two steps behind him, calls out to a pair of soldiers, and after some hasty contention involving insults, grunts and an elbow to the cheekbone, Callender’s arm is wrenched up behind his back and he is marched out into the brilliant day. Some hundred yards from the presidential mansion, he is let go and told that if he dares to enter the building again, he will be shot on sight.
Callender wants to laugh at the retreating backs of the soldiers, but he can’t quite manage it. The reason he wants to laugh is that he knows Thomas Jefferson goes for a ride every afternoon, and so all he — James T. Callender — has to do to have his moment with the president is sit down within sight of the stables and wait. He walks around to the rear of the mansion and finds a comfortable place to sit, on a rock outcropping beside a dirt track designated as New York Avenue.
There is only one thing wrong with this plan: Between his trip from his hotel that morning and his audience with Madison, Callender has already emptied his flask and he is not at all sure he will have the necessary fortitude to confront Thomas Jefferson without another swallow or two.
Even in so imaginary a city as Washington, there can’t be very much distance between taverns, so Callender sets off and does not have to walk even a quarter mile before he finds himself sitting at a table, a glass of brandy in front of him and his flask refilled. He would have been back at his lookout point beside New York Avenue within fifteen minutes, but he gets into an argument about the superiority of militias to a standing army and ends up not starting back to his post until the sun is a good third past its zenith. He walks with heavy steps, all but certain that Thomas Jefferson has already returned from his ride. But then, still some twenty yards from the rock outcropping, he catches sight of a tall man on a bay stallion just approaching along New York Avenue. Lifting his coat hems with each of his hands, Callender sprints until he is standing directly in front of the bay and its rider.
“Now you have no choice but to hear me out!” he declares between gasps.
“There’s no point in wasting your breath,” says Thomas Jefferson. “Randolph has given up his suit, and you will have your money forthwith.” He tugs the horse’s reins to the right, but Callender leaps again into his path, before the horse has taken half a step.
“Damn the money!” he shouts. “I don’t care a pig’s prick for the money! I only want my just and deserved recompense for the services I have rendered you!”
Thomas Jefferson yanks the reins a second time. “I will not discuss this matter any further,” he says as he passes. “You have been more than adequately compensated for your work. I agree that your imprisonment was a travesty of the law, but I pardoned you as soon as I took office, and now I have seen to it that your fine will be returned to you. I owe you nothing more and consider our association ended.”
Callender shambles alongside the horse as Thomas Jefferson speaks. Several times he reaches for the horse’s reins, intending to bring it to a halt, but they repeatedly elude his fingers. Only when the horse bucks and grazes his knee with a hoof does Callender leap back and give up his efforts.
“You’re fucking arse wipe, Jefferson!” he shouts at the president’s retreating back. “You’re twice the tyrant that Adams was, and even Washington would be staggered by your self-serving hypocrisy. You’re the fucking traitor! Do you hear me? You don’t give a rat’s arse for democracy! But you can’t escape your own actions! Mark my words: Even you don’t have the power to change the facts! I know why you’re always in such a hurry to get back to Monticello! I know that every word you have ever uttered about niggers is a damnable lie! Rind may have been too afraid to publish what he knew, but I am not! Do you hear me? I am not!”
~ ~ ~
It is well known that the man, whom it delighteth the people to honor, keeps, and for many years past has kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves. Her name is SALLY. The name of her eldest son is TOM. His features are said to bear a striking although sable resemblance to those of the president himself. The boy is ten or twelve years of age. His mother went to France in the same vessel with Mr. Jefferson and his two daughters. The delicacy of this arrangement must strike every person of common sensibilities. What a sublime pattern for an American ambassador to place before the eyes of two young ladies!… By this wench Sally, our president has had several children…. THE AFRICAN VENUS is said to officiate, as housekeeper at Monticello.
— James T. Callender
Richmond Recorder
September 1, 1802
~ ~ ~
On September 3, 1802, Mr. Lilly sends Tom Shackelford into Charlottesville to dispatch several barrels of nails to Baltimore and London. Sally Hemings goes with him so that she might visit Mickel’s Millinery to buy cloth for the quilts she is making for Maria’s son, Francis, and for her own little Harriet, who is a year and a half old. But also it is a fine day for a ride: sunny and coolish, one of those days in which the sky seems to have expanded and the breezes to move about more freely — an enormous relief after three solid weeks of nearly one-hundred-degree heat.
She gets off the wagon at the stage office and walks east on Main Street, which is still muddy from the previous day’s thunderstorm. A white man in shirtsleeves and a pink waistcoat is sitting on a bench in front of a grocery, smoking a pipe. Sally Hemings’s eye is drawn to him more by his perfect stillness than anything else. He is gaunt, with deltas of shadow under his cheekbones. His brow is gnarled, one corner of his mouth is pulled down and his china-blue eyes are staring directly at her. “Yellow bitch!” he says, and spits at her feet.
Sally Hemings is so shocked that she stops in her tracks.
“Abel!” the man shouts through the grocer’s door. “Come on out here! Jefferson’s nigger slut is right in front of your store!”
“What?” a voice calls from the dark interior.
“Just come on out! That yellow bitch whore is right here! Right on your doorstep!”
Sally Hemings has lifted the skirt of her gown and is hurrying with her head lowered along the muddy street.
“Dusky Sal!” a voice calls from behind her. “Dusky Sal!”
She hears laughter — from two men and a woman.
She doesn’t know where she is going; she only wants to put as much distance between herself and the man at the grocery as she can. But other people have heard the shouting and have stopped in twos and threes to watch her go by.