Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia

Hideous hermaphroditical character (Spurious Quotation)

Find out if Thomas Jefferson ever described John Adams as a hideous hermaphrodite.

Side-by-side images of a white bust of John Adams and a terracotta-colored bust of Thomas Jefferson.

Side-by-side images of a reproduction of an original bust of John Adams made by Jean-Baptiste Binon c. 1818 (more information on Monticello's busts of Adams may be found here and here) and an original version of a bust of Thomas Jefferson by John-Antoine Houdon 1789 (more information on Monticello's bust of Jefferson by Houdon may be found here).

Comments: These words were not written by Thomas Jefferson, but by James Callender, a partisan newspaper editor.  The quote appears in a pamphlet Callender published in 1800-1801, The Prospect Before Us.

Men of Virginia!  pause and ponder upon those instructive cyphers, and these incontestible facts.  Ye will then judge for yourselves on the point of an American navy.  Ye will judge without regard to the prattle of a president, the prattle of that strange compound of ignorance and ferocity, of deceit and weakness; without regard to that hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."1

- Anna Berkes, 6/17/16

Further Sources

Footnotes

  1. James Callender, The Prospect Before Us (Richmond, Virginia: Printed for the author and sold by M. Jones, S. Pleasants, Jun., and J. Lyon, 1800-1801), v. 2 pt. 2, p. 57.