At the close of this antique little speech, the Chief Justice motions to the lawyer whose case is to be argued, and that gentleman rises, advances to the front, and begins his argument.
The chairs of the Judges are all placed in the order of their date of appointment. On either side of the Chief Justice sit the senior Judges, while the last appointed sit at the farther ends of each row. In the robing-room, their robes, and coats and hats, hang in the same order. In the consultation-room, where the Judges meet on Saturday to consult together over important cases presented, their chairs around the table are arranged in the same order, the Chief Justice presiding at the head. Both the robing and consultation-rooms command beautiful views from their windows of the city, the Potomac, and the hills of Virginia. In the former, the Judges exchange their civic dress for the high robes of office. These are made of black silk or satin, and are almost identical with the silk robe of an Episcopal clergyman. The gown worn by Judge McClean[McClean] still hangs upon its hook as when he hung it there for the last time—years and years ago. The consultation-room is across the hall from the Law Library, whose books are in constant demand by the lawyers and Judges of the Supreme Court. This room is in charge of “Uncle Henry,” a colored man, who has held this office for fifty years, and, at the age of eighty, still fulfils his duties with all the alacrity and twice the devotion of a much younger man.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE “MECCA OF THE AMERICAN.”
The Caaba of Liberty—The Centre of a Nation’s Hopes—Stirring Reminiscences of the Capitol—History Written in Stone—Patriotic Expression of Charles Sumner—Ruskin’s Views of Ornament—Building “for all Time”—“This our Fathers Did for Us”—The Parthenon and the Capitol Compared—The Interest of Humanity—A Secret Charm for a Thoughtful Mind—An Idea of Equality—The Destiny of the Stars and Stripes—A Mother’s Ambition—Recollections of the War—The Dying Soldier—“The Republic will not Perish.”
The Capitol of his country should be the Mecca of the American. It is his Capitol, and his country’s, through such extreme cost, that he should make pilgrimages hither to behold with his own eyes the Caaba of Liberty. This august building should gather and concentrate within its walls the holy love of country.
In our vast land the passion of nationality has become too much diffused. It has been broken into the narrower love bestowed upon a single State. It has been bruised by faction. It has been broken by anarchy. But within the walls of the Capitol, every State in the Union holds its memories, and garners its hopes. Every hall and corridor, every arch and alcove, every painting and marble is eloquent with the history of its past, and the prophecy of its future. The torch of revolution flamed in sight, yet never reached this beloved Capitol. Its unscathed walls are the trophies of victorious war; its dome is the crown of triumphant freemen; its unfilled niches and perpetually growing splendor foretell the grandeur of its final consummation. Remembering this, with what serious thought and care should this great national work progress:
“The hand that rounded Peter’s dome,
And groined the aisles of ancient Rome,
Wrought with a sad sincerity.”
Let no poor artist, no insincere spirit, assume to decorate a building in whose walls and ornaments a great nation will embody and perpetuate its most precious history. The brain that designs, the hand that executes for the Capitol, works not for to-day, but for all time. It was with a profound consciousness, not only of what this building is, but of all that it must yet be to the American people, that Charles Sumner, that profound lover of beauty, said, with so much feeling: “Surely this edifice, so beautiful and interesting, should not be opened to the rude experiment of untried talent. It ought not to receive, in the way of ornamentation, anything which is not a work of art.” In every future work added to the Capitol, let the significant words of Ruskin, the great art critic, be remembered: