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PARTISAN REVIEW
who in the great debates drew his inspiration for containing slavery from
the early Jefferson of 1776-1784 and turned his "self-evident" truths into
a "standard maxim for free society" to be "constantly approximated in the
future. "
Ellis is refreshing in his skepticism about the Hemings-Jefferson liai–
son, which Sean Wilentz in the
New Republic
believes "should fill us with
cheer" as an example of interracial intimacy and respect in an "under–
ground" family. (So we have the savor of scandal combined with the uplift
of family values.) Ellis thinks that the affair contradicts the dominant pat–
terns of Jefferson's character, but Ellis's reason is pejorative: Jefferson
"lacked the capacity" for such a "direct, physical expression of his sexual
energies." Even
if
untrue, the story "captures the inherently promiscuous
character of Jefferson's elusive personality." So Jefferson is guilty, even
when he is innocent. Was he wrong to believe that his enemies had "never
known
him,"
only "an imaginary being clothed with odious attributes to
whom they had given his name"?
CUSHING STROUT
The Public Trust
IN DEFENSE OF GOVERNMENT.
T HE FALL
AND RISE OF P UBLIC
TRUST.
By Jacob Weisberg.
Scribner's. $22.00
Public trust is falling, not rising, so the hoped-for renaissance
in
gov–
ernment activism and
in
the American public's trust in the government does
not seem to be around the corner.Why is that? This is a question Weisberg
never quite gets around to answering. He approaches an answer
in
his dis–
cussion of those he calls "reactionary liberals"-his paradigmatic case in
point is the former governer of New York, Mario Cuomo, who believes that
"the horizon of government is still limitless," and who briefly considers the
notion that liberals need to rethink, then dismisses it. He acknowledges that
the welfare system is "deeply flawed" and that a "monthly AFDC check
traps an underclass in poverty" but reactionary liberals, Weisberg continues,
