We had planned to return to the House of Representatives for our second program, but Speaker DeLeo called the House into emergency session to vote of the Senate succession bill on the 17th.  We shifted gears and venue quickly, and moved to Faneuil Hall. 

The move turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Faneuil Hall, the “Cradle of Liberty” was the scene of many of Morris’s best moments.  The students who packed the Hall got a real feel for Morris and his work with the anti-slavery and early civil rights movements.

    Justice Roderick Ireland of the Supreme Judicial Court gave a wonderful talk about the role of the judiciary, separation of powers and judicial review. 

Drawing on examples from his own career, he explained that the role of the judge is not to decide cases to get to preferred outcome;  rather, it is to apply the law fairly, even if the result in a case might not seem desirable. He pointed out that the Legislature did, indeed, act to ban segregation in 1855, making Massachusetts the first state in the Union to prohibit elementary school segregation. Justice Shaw’s remarks make an excellent tool for any high school teacher trying to explain our tripartite system of government, the role of a judicial branch with limited powers, and the process of appellate review.

     Although the result on the Roberts case seems hard to justify now, Justice Ireland pointed out that “sometimes the power lies in another branch to fix a problem.” 

Justice Ireland pointed out that the Roberts opinion had support in the text of the Massachusetts Constitution.  Justice Ireland concluded with this observation:

    “Whether you agree or disagree with Shaw and the SJC’s ruling in Roberts v. City of Boston, you can see that, as in so many other areas of life, reasonable people can disagree; but here we are, 160 ears after the Roberts case and I am willing to give Chief Justice Shaw and the SJC of that time the benefit of the doubt.  After all, they were my predecessors who served on the same Court I am honored to serve on, and I have no reason to doubt their integrity or commitment to the law.”  Justice Shaw’s remarks can be found by clicking the link below.

   

Reverend Stephen Kendrick brought the discussion back to a more intimate level.   His talk, entitled “One Family’s Struggle” helped place Morris in the Boston of his time, both before and after the Civil War.  Reverend Kendrick, whose book Sarah’s Long Walk formed the basis for our essay contest, pointed out that the story of Morris, and Shaw, Charles Sumner and Shadrach Minkins, involved real people who were at the center of real events, many of which transpired within easy walking distance of Faneuil Hall.   “Living on Beacon Hill”, he said, “there is a sense of lived history.  Every night when I walk my dog, I walk past the homes of these people.  Sumner’s home is there;  Shaw’s home is just around the corner from my home.  And these echoes still live today; and they are real and they are powerful.”

    Reverend Kendrick pointed out that the cases and decisions impacted real people who had to deal with the outcome and live their lives as best they could.  “These are real people who, in local communities, dared everything.  Because when the high priced, big named lawyers left, and when the constitutional scholars left, they had to pick up the pieces in their own communities and in their own school systems.”  Reverend Kendrick’s address can be found by clicking the link below.

  

In listening to and watching Justice Houston, it appeared that he was enjoying the experience as much if not more than the audience.  Justice Houston, who was one of the founders of the Long Road to Justice Exhibition at the Edward Brooke Courthouse, and is a charter member of the Ruffin Society, spoke movingly about a Morris and the delicate balance he and his mentor, Ellis Gray Loring, had to walk during Morris’s apprenticeship in Loring’s law office and about the “troubling ambivalence” between the professions of equality in the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and the reality of black life in ante bellum Massachusetts.  “I do not propose to say a word against the bar of that day,” Justice Houston said.  It was a splendid fraternity, it was a splendid fraternity with Webster at its head, and [Rufus] Choate and [Samuel] Bartlett;  but the advent of a Negro lawyer was an experiment, and open to the natural repugnance of a conservative profession.”  Justice Houston’s comment seemed especially appropriate, speaking as he was under the famous painting of Webster’s Reply to Hayne. 

    Justice Houston’s speech can be found by clicking the link below, and will make an excellent starting point for any teacher wishing to explore the life of Morris or the problems faced by blacks in Boston and Massachusetts in the 19th Century.

    Following the presentation, the speakers stayed to mingle with the students. 

Southbridge High School brought students from a journalism class who interviewed the speakers and then played the interviews on the school radio station.  It was a great opportunity for the students to interact with the distinguished panel members and to practice their interviewing skills.

    We are working on our next Otis Lecture, Lincoln and the Law, which will feature two outstanding scholars: Professor Michael Burlingame from Connecticut College who recently published an award winning, two volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, and Professor Akhil Reed Amar, the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale, author of America’s Constitution, a Biography.