by Allen Drury
The rest arrived just behind them, and on a wave of amicability they walked slowly up the steps and went in.
The Great Hall was brightly illuminated just as it always was—“white, white, white,” as he had overheard some tourist’s child remarking one day. The night guards smiled and bowed; one young newcomer even stood to attention and snapped them a smart salute. A few late-working law clerks were still in the Hall; they smiled and stepped back respectfully. From their niches along the walls the busts of his predecessors looked down upon them as they passed.
They ascended to the second floor, turned left and made their way along the corridor—again, the Chief reflected, white, white, white—to the dining room. He noted that the staff had outdone itself: ferns and flowers on the snowy tablecloth, the gleam of old silver, the soft glow of old china, the patina of antique chairs and cabinets, candlelight, candlelight everywhere. It seemed like John Marshall’s day again, welcoming, warm, charming—and snug, for a little while, against the clamors of the angry world, from whose constant concerns this was for them a most rare and precious escape.
The Chief felt a sudden warmly sentimental glow for them all, and for the Court… The Court! How they all loved it and how much it meant to them and to their country! Eight fallible men and a woman, embodying the Law—how many long centuries, how much bitter struggle, how much pain and blood and sacrifice it had taken to bring civilization to this point! And how darkly it was threatened, and how easily it could be toppled were it not constantly, constantly protected.
He was sorry Moss and Sue-Ann were missing the occasion, because they always added a charm of their own, particularly to such faintly antiquarian scenes as this; but he supposed they must be having a good time down in South Carolina. He had seen Moss on his home grounds a couple of times before. He loved to play the grand seigneur when he got to South Carolina, and nobody did it better. Right now, the Chief supposed, he was making some graceful little speech that would set them all roaring. They loved Moss, down there, and everybody was always anxious to hear him speak.
And indeed he was preparing to hold them spellbound in the palm of his hand once again as he sat patiently on the speaker’s platform with Sue-Ann on one side and Sarah and Janie on the other. The girls, as he had accurately predicted, were having a grand time of it. Both were used to public life to some degree, but this trip, with its flight in the plane provided by the President, its gala reception concluded just an hour ago, its quick tour of the just-finished plant with all its fresh new smells and spick-and-span cleanness, the friendly crowd gathered to witness the ceremony, the setting in the beautiful little valley in the tree-clad hills, the floodlights, the noise, the fun, the excitement—“Your eyes are bigger than saucers,” he told them and they went off, without further prompting, into gales of giggles.
“Girls!” Sue-Ann whispered, leaning over to them. “Girls! The governor is speaking. Now, you-all stop that and listen, hear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sarah said, struggling without much success for composure. “I’m trying, I’m trying.”
But it was too much for them and they began to giggle again behind their hands while Moss, smiling a little and shaking his head, commanded the amused sympathy of the parents in the crowd. There was a little murmur of laughter. The governor, puzzled, hesitated in midflight, turned around and glanced back; saw what was causing it and promptly joined in.
“You two young ladies are disruptin’ my speech, you know that?” he said good-naturedly. “Now, you just hush and pay attention, because this is serious business.”
“Yes, sir,” Janie squeaked, voice cracking, and immediately they were off again.
This was too much for everyone, and for a moment the little vale filled with laughter, its sound rising pleasantly through the trees to the cave mouth where the only one who was not amused wished with a furious impatience that they would stop the insane yakking and get on with it. He was growing more tense by the minute. His lips now were drawn back from his teeth and unconsciously his face was set in a wolflike mask that would have frightened anyone who saw it. No one did. His hands, resting on knees that steadied a detonator, trembled and were wet with sweat. He stood up suddenly, unzipped his pants and freed himself: he knew from experience what would happen when he hit the charge. Then he leaned back against a tree and stared up unseeing into the velvet night. Get on with it, he told them savagely. For God’s sake, get on with it.
After allowing the laughter to run on for a few more seconds, the governor did. His amiable banalities floated out through the soft cool air, echoing slightly from the low rolling hills all around.
“And so now,” he said finally—Janie and Sarah having managed to contain themselves, everyone now listening approvingly to his words, the little group of demonstrators corralled off in a corner, silenced by police with clubs who gestured threateningly if they so much as coughed (and also silenced because the television cameras were being kept away from them)—“now, we come to our principal speaker of the evening, my great predecessor in the office of governor, a great Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, but above all”—he took a deep breath and sailed on—“above all, a great son of South Carolina, a man we all know and love, a man whose ancestors came to this state almost three hundred years ago, to this very ground we stand on, which was their first ancestral home in the New World, a man who”—he took another breath and rumbled on—“wherever he goes and whatever he does, is always and indubitably a true son of South Carolina—Justice STANLEY MOSSITER POMEROY! Of,” he added almost as an afterthought as the crowd surged shouting and applauding to its feet, “SOUTH CAROLINA!”
Moss rose and stepped forward, shaking hands with the governor, lifting their joined hands high in the standard political gesture, nodding, smiling, waving with his free hand, while the generous and affectionate welcome engulfed them.
When it died down he stepped forward and started to speak. Then he stopped, grinned and turned to gesture to the girls.
“You all know Sue-Ann,” he said as they came obediently forward, “but I want you to meet the two young ladies who have caused such a disturbance here tonight. This is my daughter Sarah—and this is her good friend, the daughter of our newest Supreme Court Justice, just seated on the Court, as you all know—Jane Barbour. Girls—”
And he gestured them forward and stepped back while they stood giggling and waving in the floodlights and the friendly applause surged up once more.
Above in the trees, having ceased his attempts to really listen after he had heard the Justice’s name, off in a world of his own that was racing to a climax of terrible tension and almost unbearable excitement, the watcher calculated that the speaker must now be well launched; and, reaching down, touched the detonator.
Instantly he leaped up, his back arched, his body convulsed. He staggered back gasping and groaning against the tree and gave himself up helplessly to the agonizing pleasure he could not have stopped had he wanted to, which he did not.
On the platform his rose of death flowered in the soft summer night. All along the dark side of the plant that faced his shuddering oblivious body, companion roses flowered too.
“Justice Barbour,” the Chief Justice was saying with a benign smile in the cozily candlelit, peaceful, eminently civilized room, “before we begin this charming repast in this charming place, perhaps it would be fitting to say a few words and offer a toast of goodwill to our new Associate, whose presence honors this Court as we know it will serve the country.
“We are glad to have you here. We wish you well. We are certain that you will perform great service.
“Perhaps we should warn you, however, that it is not only in the White House—although,” he interjected with a wry little smile, “various Chief Executives have sought to take all the credit to themselves—that it can truthfully be said, ‘The buck stops here.’ It also stops right here, in this Court. There is nobody above us to appeal to. There is no way, saving only a law of
Congress or an amendment to the Constitution, to change the basis for one of our rulings. There is no one we can pass the burden along to. Here we must deliberate and decide. Once we have accepted a case there is no way we can discharge ourselves of it except by a decision. We have to vote it up or down. We may delay a bit, sometimes, to permit further argument or further study; but then the day comes and the decision must be rendered. Up or down, it must be voted; yea or nay, we must give voice. And once we have, that is it—unless reversed freely and in their own good time by future Justices—for so long as this Republic remains as we now know it. Which, pray God under whom we hold our liberties, will be for quite some time to come.
“Once, in the first days I came here, I started to use the garage entrance to the building. I still do, to large degree, as do we all, because it is the most direct and most private access for us. But every once in a while I still do what I used to do quite deliberately two or three times a week then, and that is, enter from the First Street side as we did tonight, so that I can come up the steps to the main entrance. And there before me, chiseled in the marble, I see our historic charge: Equal Justice Under Law.
“Under law—that is the gist of it. The law that men have fought for, died for, given everything for, over so many long centuries; the orderly process, which in its way is almost—not quite, but very close—almost more important, even, than the substance it embodies.
“To do things peaceably and without violence. To consider all views fairly and equably. To reach agreement sensibly and patiently. To give all sides an equal hearing, and accord to each the right to state his point of view. To impose the will of one upon another only after the most scrupulously fair and honest balancing of opposing opinions. Above all, to deal with one another in peace and without violence.
“These, it seems to me, should be the highest aims, as they are the noblest indications, of truly civilized men. They are increasingly, terrifyingly, rare in this world we live in now. It is they that we nine in this house, and all our brethren and sisters of the law wherever they be found, are charged with preserving. We cannot enforce them, for that rests in other hands; but we can state them and we can define them and we can perfect them, so that all may hear a clear call and all may have a common standard to adhere to.
“I do not pretend”—and here his eyes became troubled, his kindly face concerned—“that in these days this is an easy task; or that all men pay attention; or even that all of us so charged throughout the land are equal to the task, or able—or even desirous—of responding with such high standards. But we must try; we must try. Above all we, we of this Court, must try.
“We cannot prevent the errors of others, but in our own house we have inherited from great men the power to correct them. And this we must do—imperfectly, sometimes, but always, I would hope, as honestly and diligently as we can.
“So again, Justice Barbour: we are glad to have you here. We hope you will find us congenial companions in the long, never-ending march toward the rule of law. It is not here yet—indeed it is retrogressing everywhere in these troubled times—but there is no better alternative. We must keep striving. Both the goal we hope for, and the penalty for humankind if we do not achieve it, are very great.”
He picked up his glass of wine, raised it high.
“To Taylor Barbour, of the Supreme Court of the United States, Associate Justice,” he said solemnly. “We wish you well. May the law always be your principle, as you are now pledged to be its servant. And may all go well with you on this Court, and everywhere.”
“Hear, hear!” Wally Flyte cried, as they all rose, took up their glasses, drank deep; even Mary, though Tay could sense her rather amused and patronizing attitude. He did not care; he was deeply moved and not at all sure, as they resumed their seats, how he would reply. He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. None of them would ever forget how he had looked in this supreme moment just before his world began to shatter and collapse: tall, dignified, honest, sincere; grave, handsome, self-possessed; both judicious and judicial, as became his new position.
Softly and deliberately he began to speak to these few, these precious few, his brethren and his sister who lived and worked beneath the banner that was theirs to uphold, EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW.
“Mr. Chief Justice,” he said, “my sister and my brethren—my friends. I would be a poor human being and a poor servant of the law if I were not profoundly moved by the remarks the Chief Justice has seen fit to address to me. They are the words of a wise and generous man, one who leads this Court with kindness, decency and compassion; one whose grasp of the law far exceeds my own and to whom I expect to look often for guidance in the days ahead. May I propose a counter-toast:
“To Duncan Elphinstone, a great Chief Justice, a great friend, and above all, a great human being.”
And once again they were on their feet, glasses raised, while The Elph blushed and smiled and finally, with a hurried, abashed and touching gesture, dashed a hand across eyes that had filled, spontaneously and quite innocently of artifice, with tears.
“My friends,” Tay resumed when they were seated again and watching him once more with a generous but intent surveillance, “my concept of this Court began a long time ago—and with it, I think, though I was not conscious of it at the time, my concept of myself both as a lawyer and as a person.”
(And how is that concept doing now? a small inner voice inquired. Now that you have gone to Fifth Street and rutted like an alley cat? But this was so unfair to Cathy that he silenced it with savage sternness, hesitating only the slightest of seconds, which Moss perhaps would have noticed. But Moss at this moment was far away, and dreadfully occupied.)
“As you know, my emphasis all these years has been on what some might call the ‘liberal’ side of things”—Rupert Hemmelsford stirred in his chair and Tay caught his eye and winked, which amused them and brought a reluctant grin from Rupe—“but which, I like to think, is simple compassion, decency and common sense.
“I have never been one to feel, as some who claim the liberal label do, that everyone who disagrees is a sinister reactionary whose character, career and achievements must be destroyed as ruthlessly as possible if he dares to question the accepted liberal faith. Nor do I feel, as some of them do, that any form of censorship and suppression of opposing viewpoints is justified. Nor do I feel that derogation, belittlement, besmirchment may, and should be, substituted for fair argument. I think, and have tried to practice, that it is fair to state one’s own point of view as strongly as one can when one has reached what one believes to be valid conclusions, but that one should also give an equal hearing to those who disagree. One should not censor or suppress them and I do not believe I ever have. It is my belief that convictions, if honestly held, may be honestly and strongly stated, but arguments leading up to them should be fair and open to all comers.
“To me, moderation and fairness are major signs of a true liberal.”
“Hear, hear!” Wally Flyte said again; and approving applause agreed.
“The whole thrust of my social beliefs is that government has the right and the obligation to exercise its powers for the betterment of the individual and the improvement of the whole society.
“But”—his tone turned somber—“it is, as President Grover Cleveland said, a condition which confronts us, not a theory. And the condition, as we are all aware, is very grave.
“I do not have to review, here of all places, terror in the streets-violence of all kinds general and political—citizens living in fear, going about their business in fear—worrying about themselves and their children—empty, senseless, pointless death occurring on a moment’s whim—contempt for law, contempt for kindness, contempt for life—the whole fabric cracking at the hands of criminals, pathologues, punks. We are in a sorry state at this moment, a culmination of family breakdown, parental irresponsibility, economic uncertainty, inadequate police, overcrowded courts, excessive coddling of criminals by many greedy and o
verliberal lawyers and by many courts including, let us face it, this one—the whole paraphernalia of a society inexorably breaking down under an excess of its own basic principle of freedom for all—except, in recent years, the poor unfortunate victim who happens to be in the way.
“The American reaction to this—let us say the human reaction, for never was there a nation whose form of government gave it more chance to express every aspect of human nature, good and bad—the American human reaction, naturally, is to go too far the other way.
“Action and reaction, failure and result: the inevitable twins. Posing for this Court, and probably very soon, a decision or decisions we may desperately wish we were not required to make.
“So, my sister and brethren”—he paused and saw they were all enrapt save Mary, whose carefully controlled but faintly disapproving look he ignored—“how shall we meet the challenge when it comes?
“For myself, I am going to try hard—try my damnedest—to hold to the principles of fairness and justice in which I believe. I know we all are, and I am not assuming any special virtue or superiority about it or implying that anybody will do less. I am just trying to say what I think. I am going to try to be true to the Constitution and its protections for all citizens, accuser and accused, victim and criminal, individual and society.
“Maybe that can’t be done, in a climate becoming as tense and frightened as the one we live in. Perhaps fairness and moderation are going to lose the battle, at least temporarily—I hope to God temporarily, if it happens. Perhaps—the Constitution being what we say it is, as some of our less guarded predecessors on this Court have been known to state—it will be impossible to maintain all of its protections for all citizens, fairly and squarely across the board. But I am going to try, because that is the way I am: try with a fairness and dispassion as determined, as unwavering and as free from hampering emotion as I have in me.
