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Inscriptions Brochure, 2Nd The Art and Craft of Justice A guide to the stone carvings and inscriptions of the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse, Boston, Massachusetts The Art Dedicated to John Benson and Craft Whose supervision and execution of the stone carvings of Justice and inscriptions of the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston provide tangible evidence that a single person making a single thing can do justice with art A guide to and craft. the stone carvings On the front cover: Stone carver John Benson applying stain to and inscriptions of the letters carved at the main entry to the courthouse. John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse, All rights reserved. The text of this publication may be reprinted for educational use, not for Boston, Massachusetts resale, and for review,without express permission. Otherwise, no part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the James D.St.Clair Court Public Education Project of the Boston Bar Foundation, Inc. Text and design copyright ©2002, 1998 James D.St.Clair Court Public Education Project of the Boston Bar Foundation, Inc. Photographs copyright ©2002, 1998 Peter Vanderwarker Photograph on pages 42–43 copyright ©2001–2002 Vin Catania Photographer.All rights reserved Designed and produced byVern Associates, Inc. Second edition The first edition of this brochure, published in 1998, was funded by the Boston Bar Association’s Federal Court Public Education Project (now organized as the James D.St.Clair Court Public Education Project of the Boston Bar Foundation, Inc.) and the Massachusetts Chapter of the Federal Introduction by Bar Association. Publication of the second edition of this brochure was funded by the Anthony Lewis Attorney Admission Fund of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts to further public education regarding our nation’s Photography by legal system and support the mission of: Peter Vanderwarker discovering justice James D. St.Clair Court Public Education Project John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse Text by 1 Courthouse Way Boston, Massachusetts 02210 Douglas P. Woodlock Jury Assembly Hall, urging that truth is better reached by “free Participating in a Democratic trade in ideas.”And still his judicial passion was not spent. Conversation about the Law “That at any rate is the theory of our constitution,”Holmes wrote.“It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. .While Words carved in stone have adorned the public buildings that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be of democracies since ancient Athens. In this country especially eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of the art of the stone carver has been used to express civic ideals. opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death.” The familiar example is the inscription above the great columns What extraordinary language. But wasn’t it wasted in a dis- of the Supreme Court building in Washington,DC: EQUAL senting opinion? Not at all. Courts that apply in concrete cases JUSTICE UNDER LAW. the majestic generalities of the Constitution—“freedom of Inscriptions are an important feature of the new United speech,”“equal protection of the laws”—can be moved to States Courthouse in Boston.There are over thirty of them, change their understanding by wisdom and experience.And dis- inside and outside the building. Like the motto that the senting opinions are part of that process. Supreme Court presents to the world, they articulate the For a decade after the Abrams decision, the Supreme Court hopes—and the commitments—of our society. continued to uphold the repression of radical speakers with Each of the inscriptions is a separate reflection about the Holmes and Brandeis dissenting.They were as eloquent as law.They are history.They are passion.Together they form a dis- Pericles in their defense of liberty.Indeed, Brandeis was influ- cussion about what the law can and should do in a free society. enced by Pericles’ funeral oration to the ancient Athenians in his They are a democratic conversation. 1927 opinion in Whitney v.California, a passage from which Passion is not far below the surface of the quotation from appears on the wall opposite the Holmes quotation in the Jury Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes on one wall of the Jury Assembly Assembly Hall. Gradually their eloquence persuaded the coun- Hall, and it provides an insight into the history of the democrat- try and the Court.Their passion has become the orthodox view ic conversation.The quotation is from Holmes’s dissenting opin- of the First Amendment. ion in Abrams v. United States, decided in 1919.The issue was There is a paradox in the American political system, and this: President Wilson had sent U. S. forces to Russia after the there always has been.We live in a democracy,and we elect our Bolshevik Revolution.A group of radicals threw pamphlets legislators and executives, federal and state. But the Constitution from the roofs of buildings in New York City objecting to puts limits on what elected politicians can do.And judges often Wilson’s policy. For this insignificant gesture—Holmes called must decide, from case to case, where those limits are.They do the unsigned pamphlets “puny anonymities”—group members so, over time, in a conversation among themselves and with were prosecuted on charges of sedition, convicted and sentenced lawyers and the public.That is the conversation overheard to twenty years in prison. In the jingoistic atmosphere of World among the stone carvings and inscriptions of this building. It is a War I, few objected. Moreover, although the First Amendment conversation in which all those encountering these inscriptions to the Constitution forbade Congress to abridge “the freedom are invited to participate. of speech,” the Supreme Court had never—not once—invoked The paradox is more apparent than real, for the world the amendment to protect the speech of radical dissidents. learned, in the twentieth century,that democracy is not safe When the Supreme Court upheld the convictions and sav- without protection of fundamental rights.And so countries age sentences in the Abrams case, Justice Holmes wrote the first around the world, from Ireland to South Africa, have copied the Supreme Court opinion asserting the fundamental value of free- American system of judicially enforceable constitutional rights. dom of speech in our constitutional system. Joined in dissent by It is an experiment, Holmes said, as all life is an experiment. Justice Louis D.Brandeis, he began by saying that it was “per- But it has worked for more than two hundred years. fectly logical” to persecute people for their opinions. If you have no doubt about your ideas or your power, he said, you “natural- —Anthony Lewis, August 1998 ly” want to “sweep away all opposition.”But then he went on (Anthony Lewis, a columnist for the New York Times, has written exten- with the words presented in raised lettering on the wall of the sively about the Supreme Court of the United States.) – 4– – 5– John Adams In the spring of 1776, as the leading figures from the American colonies began to prepare for consideration by the Continental Congress of the question whether to declare independence from the British Crown, John Adams wrote a pamphlet entitled Thoughts on Government. Adams was a Massachusetts lawyer who would become the first Vice President and the second President of the United States. In the passage from the pamphlet that is inscribed on this tablet, placed at the entrance to the court- house,Adams contended that society depends upon compe- tence and integrity in the administration of justice. In this connection, he argued for a separation of powers:“The judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and the executive, and independent of both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that.” The distinctiveness of the judicial power,Adams maintained, requires that the judges’“minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man or body of men.” Lelia Josephine Robinson The principles of government Adams outlined in his pamphlet—the separation of powers and judicial indepen- In 1881, when Lelia Josephine Robinson graduated cum dence—were embodied in the Massachusetts Constitution of laude from Boston University Law School, she ranked fourth 1780, of which he was the principal draftsman, and the in her class. Her academic success boded well for success as a Constitution of the United States, which was drafted seven lawyer, but she faced a significant hurdle: No woman had years later. ever been admitted to practice law by the courts of Massachusetts. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts invited Robinson to prepare a brief in support of her application to be a lawyer. Because she was not a member of the bar, how- ever, she was not permitted to present oral argument. In an opinion by Chief Justice Horace Gray,who would later be appointed to serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court of Massachusetts unanimously rejected Robinson’s application, relying on the failure of the state legislature to provide expressly that women could become members of the bar. The opinion of the Supreme Judicial Court denying the admission of women to the practice of law was speedily reversed by the Massachusetts legislature, which affirmed the argument Robinson made in her brief, an excerpt of which is inscribed on this tablet at the entrance to the courthouse. To obtain the consent of all segments of society in the rule of law,the entire community must have the right to partici- pate in the process of administering justice.
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