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    Wisconsin Lawyer
    March 01, 2002

    Inside the Bar

    I am overwhelmed by a sense of history. Between meetings at the ABA Mid-Year Meeting in Philadelphia, I walked from my hotel to the Old City neighborhood. At Independence Hall, I stood in the hallways and rooms where the voices of Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and all our nation's founders still echoed with their debates about their future and ours.

    George Brown

    Wisconsin Lawyer
    Vol. 75, No. 3, March 2002

    Space, Time, and Our Freedom

    by George C. Brown,
    State Bar executive director

    George BrownI AM OVERWHELMED BY A SENSE OF HISTORY.

    Between meetings at the ABA Mid-Year Meeting in Philadelphia, I walked from my hotel to the Old City neighborhood. At Independence Hall, I stood in the hallways and rooms where the voices of Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and all our nation's founders still echoed with their debates about their future and ours. In that hallowed hall stands the chair where Washington sat as president of the Constitutional Convention. It was upon this chair that Franklin stated at the convention's end that, throughout the debates, he had often wondered whether the gilded half sun on the chair back was a rising or a setting sun and that he now knew it was a rising sun. Next door, I viewed the printed copy of the Declaration of Independence from which Col. Nixon read aloud for the first time anywhere to throngs of colonists in July 1776 the reasons for breaking away from England, and studied Elbridge Gerry's notated copy of the Articles of Confederation and George Washington's printed copy of the draft U.S. Constitution with his handwritten corrections. Inside the old Pennsylvania State House, I stood in the Senate chamber where Washington took the oath to begin his second term and where both Adams and Jefferson took their oaths as vice president and then, finally, in the House of Representatives chamber where Adams took the oath as president. From this chamber, Adams walked outside to greet the cheers of thousands. He was followed by Vice President Jefferson, who had just asked Washington if, as former president, he wished to follow next behind President Adams, to which Washington replied, "No, you are the vice president, I am just a private citizen."

    These seminal events took place in just a few thousand square feet of space. I walked past the sites of revolutionary financier Robert Morris's house, Dr. Benjamin Rush's house, and where the first Presbyterian organization was founded in the United States. I passed Christ Church where Declaration of Independence signer James Wilson and many others are buried, and finally lingered at Franklin's grave to wonder at his life and contributions.

    Turning the corner, I saw the steeple and front façade of Independence Hall just two blocks away. That is when I became overwhelmed. I looked back and forth between the Hall and the graveyard. Franklin and so many others actually walked these streets. Time and space merged as did my head and my heart. The foundations of our laws and our institutions were laid in these few square blocks.

    This very personal experience had been building throughout the previous few days as I heard about the heroic efforts of the leadership and the staffs of the New York City, New York County, New York State, and District of Columbia bar associations to help their members and their staffs recover from the Sept. 11 attacks. And it resulted from listening to Justice Anthony Kennedy describe a new educational outreach program he is calling "Dialogue on Freedom." Sponsored by the ABA, the program calls upon lawyers to engage in a personal dialogue with school students on the nature and meaning of our nation and freedom in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. (See President Mowris's column.)

    If we are to remain a nation of laws we all must gain a deeper understanding of these things and help others to do the same.


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