So extensive did it become that the most prominent white men in the country did not escape. Benjamin Franklin seems to have made no secret of his associations with Negro women.[490] Russell connects many of these cases with the master class in Virginia.[491] There are now in Washington Negroes who call themselves the descendants of two Virginians who attained the presidency of the United States. The abolitionists made positive statements about the mulatto offspring of Thomas Jefferson. Goodell lamented the fact that Jefferson in his will had to entreat the legislature of Virginia to confirm his bequest of freedom to his own reputed enslaved offspring that they might remain in the State of their nativity, where their families and connections were.[492] Writing in 1845, the editor of the _Cleveland American_ expressed regret that notwithstanding all the services and sacrifices of Jefferson in the establishment of the freedom of this country, his own son then living in Ohio was not allowed to vote or bear witness in a court of justice. The editor of the _Ohio Star_ said: "We are not sure whether this is intended as a statement of actual fact, or of what might possibly and naturally enough be true." _The Cincinnati Herald_ inquired: "Is this a fact? If so, it ought to be known. Perhaps 'the Democracy' might be induced to pass a special act in his favor." _The Cleveland American_, therefore, added: "We are credibly informed that a natural son of Jefferson by the celebrated 'Black Sal,' a person of no little renown in the politics of 1800 and thereafter, is now living in a central county of Ohio. We shall endeavor to get at the truth of the matter and make public the result of our inquiries."[493] A later report of miscegenation of this kind was recorded by Jane Grey Swisshelm in her _Half a Century_, where she states that a daughter of President John Tyler "ran away with the man she loved in order that she might be married, but for this they must reach foreign soil. A young lady of the White House could not marry the man of her choice in the United States. The lovers were captured and she was brought to His Excellency, her father, who sold her to a slave-trader. From that Washington slave-pen she was taken to New Orleans by a man who expected to get twenty-five hundred dollars for her on account of her great beauty.[494] CARTER G. WOODSON FOOTNOTES: [442] MacDonald, _Trade, Politics and Christianity in Africa and the East_, Chapter on inter-racial marriage, p. 239; and THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, pp. 329, 334-344. [443] _Report of First Race Congress_, 1911, p. 330; MacDonald, _Trade, Politics, and Christianity_, p. 235; and _Contemporary Review_, August, 1911. [444] _Report of First Races Congress_, 1911, p. 330. [445] Johnston, _The Negro in the New World_, p. 98. [446] _Ibid._, p. 78. [447] _Ibid._, pp. 98-99.