James Callender first alleged that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slave, Sally Hemings, more than 200 years ago. A century and a half ago, one of those children, Madison Hemings, stated publicly that Jefferson was his father. But only in the past week has the genetic evidence proved irrefutable, indicating that it was the Founding Father himself and not any of his other male relatives who sired the Hemings children.

Since as far back as Callender’s first allegation, naysayers have insisted that the Hemings family’s paternity was a smear of either Jefferson or his American project more broadly. Jefferson’s granddaughter, through his wife, insisted that such relationships were “moral impossibilities,” a defense that was echoed repeatedly and across the political aisle. The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, which was founded expressly to deny his paternity after 1998 DNA testing ruled out Jefferson’s nephews as possible fathers of the Hemings children, wrote that “the only reason” arguing the president’s responsibility “is that for those who want to reconstruct American history in accordance with their own racial and political fantasies, it’s very useful to show that Thomas Jefferson fathered a child on a black slave.”