Today's Reading
BOOK ONE
Boston
One The Revere Bell Strikes One
Two In Which the Girl Orator Comes to Town
Three Of Some Satisfaction to Know
Four O Captain! My Captain!
Five The Pride of Peacock Academy
Six Brace of Bl'uestockings
Seven City of Brotherly Love
Eight The Benjamin Franklin Effect
Nine Recalled to Life
Ten Persuasion
Eleven De la Terre à la Lune
Twelve The Sinking of the Admiral DuPont
CHAPTER ONE
The Revere Bell Strikes One
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
April 5, 1865
Six justices were assembled in chambers to consider the case before them. A seventh judge had recused himself due to a conflict, leaving the dreaded possibility of a tie. Certainly, based on precedent and the contentiousness of the matter, these men were unlikely to agree.
It was long past the evening hour, the oral dissertations having pro- ceeded at great length. Food and refreshment had been replenished several times during the closed-door session: plates of cold veal and green salad, a decanter of Madeira, and chestnut-colored coffee from a large silver pot.
Justice Philip Mackenzie was leading the discussion. He impatiently tapped one finger on the leatherbound book before him as Justice Ezekiel Peabody, making his usual plea for restraint, droned on. Finally, there was a lull. Justice Peabody refilled the goblet before him; Justice Mackenzie stopped tapping.
"Well?" He stared pointedly at the other five faces about the room. "Are we at last ready to vote?"
Chief Justice Adam Fulbright rubbed his speckle-bearded chin; with one notable exception, the judges were all grey-haired and portly after decades spent listening from the bench. "My preliminary vote is in favor."
Half the room sighed. The chief justice was, for all his leadership, the softest member of the court.
"You can't be serious." Justice Roderick Norton turned to the occupant of the wingback chair on his left. "Tell me you, William, will join the dissent. You, who always consider ideas more salient than surface charms. The Mansfield Judgment alone gives our position undeniable weight."
Justice William Stevenson raised his right index finger in the air. "My daughters—"
Now all the men groaned.
"—gentlemen, gentlemen, steady on. Both young ladies are experts in this matter, which you would do well to remember. They heartily agree with the chief justice, as do I. So, that leaves Nash."
Justice Thomas Nash was the one notable exception, the youngest member of the court. He lounged in the armchair closest to the fire, long legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles, hands clasped behind his full head of blond hair complete with fashionably long sideburns. "I'm afraid I must concur with the Misses Stevenson—for once."
"Then we have a majority—Fulbright, Stevenson, Nash, and myself—in agreement that this text"—Justice Mackenzie waved the bound volume before the group—"is the supreme example of its author's genius."
Mackenzie stood up, placed the volume on top of five others on a nearby side table, then gingerly—even reverentially—righted the pile with both hands. The other men also stood, removing the robes they had donned since daybreak and hanging them by the door for the morning washerwomen. Norton patted Peabody on the back in commiseration as they exited the dark-paneled room, dimly lit by the smoldering fire.
"Time will prove them wrong, Zeke," he practically hissed. "It always does."
...
