Thomas Jefferson is either the most prolific, hypocritical liar in American history or the victim of the most profane defamation of character allegation in 250 years. There is no gauzy middle ground in this historical tableau. Now, with a new book, History by a Hair: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings & Solving a 200-Year-Old Mystery, and a DNA study alleging a further genetic match to Jefferson’s “clipped” hair, the debate has reignited.

It has been said that journalism “is the first rough draft of history.” Some truth lies in this statement. Unfortunately, this standard has been misapplied to the current controversy: whether Jefferson had an affair with his 14-year-old slave, Sally Hemings. The debate has now dissolved into a second and third draft of a politicized novel. Jefferson is, as Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Virginius Dabney once wrote, “one of the principal historical victims of the current orgy of debunking” our heroes.