At Capitol, supporters defend Jefferson on his 266th birthday

On the 266th anniversary of his birth, some of Thomas Jefferson's biggest fans are again speaking out on the controversy that followed him to his grave in 1826 and has been fodder for scandal ever since.

Meeting beneath a portrait of the Virginian in the state Capitol he designed more than 200 years ago, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society today made the case against claims the nation's third president had an affair with slave Sally Hemings and with her, had several children after his wife's death.

But it wasn't just business for these Jefferson devotees. Led by the organization's president, Dr. William McKenzie Wallenborn of Charlottesville, they squeezed out three hearty "huzzahs" for the Sage of Monticello.

Three authors and researchers, addressing about 40 in the Capitol's yellow-green-and-white Jefferson Room, refuted DNA evidence from nearly a decade ago that has led some scholars and Jefferson buffs to conclude he and Hemings had a continuing liaison.

The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society was established largely to knock down, through continuing research of Jefferson, his family and the vast body of his work, the view that he was romantically entangled with the mixed-race slave from his Albemarle estate.

Cindy Burton, a genealogist who published "Jefferson Vindicated" in 2005, said the Hemings rumors dogged Jefferson to his death, fanned by political opponents and editorialists.

Decrying the "inconclusiveness of the evidence" against Jefferson, Burton noted that friends and allies adopted a resolution in 1840 disputing allegations of a Jefferson-Hemings romance. Jefferson's failing health would have largely precluded sexual activity, she said.

William G. Hyland, a Tampa lawyer and author of "In Defense of Thomas Jefferson," said Jefferson had only a "benevolent relationship" with Hemings, but that -- not unlike speculation surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 -- it had been swept up in "misinformation and outright inaccuracies."

Even doubters do not rule out the possibility that Hemings may have been involved with a member of the Jefferson clan, perhaps the president's brother Randolph, a rogue who had a "reputation for socializing with slaves," said Hyland.

Randolph and Thomas would have had the same DNA.

Robert F. Turner, a national security expert who teaches at the University of Virginia, headed a 2000-2001 study by 13 scholars of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship. He noted that the panel, voting 12-1, rejected as flawed and circumstantial research supporting a possible tryst.