“All rise!”

The words echoed off the walls of the courtroom and rattled around in Camden’s head. The bailiff’s cry ensured that all eyes were fixed on the entering judge, but Camden’s mind was elsewhere. He was focused intently on the night before.

John Marshall’s study had born certain similarities to Mr. Randolph’s, but nevertheless managed to put Camden in an uncomfortable state of mind. He sat uneasily in the high-backed chair that Marshall had brought in, still uncertain whether enlisting outside help would make any difference.

“Perpetuities can be a nasty business, without a doubt,” Marshall had said, alluding to their earlier encounter.

Camden had only been able to manage a nod.

“Perhaps, Mr. Page, it would help us move forward if you were to try to state the problem in your own words.”

Camden did not think he much appreciated being put in the apprentice’s chair to be examined again, especially by a questioner not that much older than himself. Nevertheless, he cleared his throat and made his best effort.

“Simply stated, the rule against perpetuities requires that a contingent interest in property must vest within twenty-one years of a life in being.”

“Or fail to vest,” Marshall added.

“Yes. And in this case it seems inescapable that at the time this will was executed, the contingency might never have come to pass. However much some few Virginians have come to abhor the institution of slavery, a thousand years might have passed before the law would have allowed such a bequest.”

“Hmm. Yes, I suppose you are right about at least that much.”

“Then I am at a loss for a solution. Must my client go to the gallows because decades ago an attorney made a drafting error?”

Camden could feel the heat rising in his face and noticed that he was sitting on the edge of his chair. He cast his gaze to the floor as he slid back.

“Your passion is understandable and commendable, Mr. Page, but you will serve your client best if you do not allow passion to rule you. I said that you had ‘at least that much’ correct, not that your analysis is without error or omission.”

Camden snapped back to the present as Judge Carter adjusted his robe and cravat before finally settling in at his seat on the bench.

“Mr. Page, being, as you are, the proponent of the evidence, I will hear your arguments first. You may—”

The judge broke off his sentence at the entrance of one of the other judges’ clerks, who conferred with Judge Carter in hushed tones.

“Regrettably, Mr. Page, it seems there is another urgent matter that requires my immediate attention. The court will stand in recess.”

A low murmur swept across the courtroom as the judge shuffled hurriedly out the same way he had come in, leaving Camden to wonder just how long this recess would be. Judge Carter had given no indication whether he would return in a few minutes or in several hours. Regardless of how much time remained Camden was sure it would prove to be equal parts relief and agony, giving him time to rehearse not only his argument, but also all of his doubts.

Thinking back to the previous evening, Camden could still hear Marshall’s next words: “You are omitting a crucial factor from your analysis.”

Camden had racked his brain as the tension mounted without even so much as the crackling of a fire or the ticking of a clock to break the silence. What had felt to Camden like an eternity could only have been a minute or two, but over the course of those moments Marshall’s face passed from a look of studied interest to one of impatience and finally to worried frustration. Finally, seemingly unable to stand any further waiting, he burst out in a tone noticeably harsher than their conversation had been up to that point.

“The life in being, sir! Whose must it be, if any? That is the key!”

The confusion Camden had felt must have made itself more than evident in his expression. Marshall let out a sigh before continuing.

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“Forgive me. My passion too often escapes my control as well. What is your client?”

The question had done little to abate Camden’s confusion, but after a slight hesitation he ventured an answer.

“He is Isaac Freeman.”

“No, I asked what is your client?”

Camden ran through the possibilities: husband, homesteader, blacksmith, former slave.

After a moment’s pause Marshall supplied the answer he had been trying to tease out.

“Mr. Page, surely you see that your client is a man. In fact, it’s in the surname that he has chosen for himself: Isaac Freeman. The life in being is your client’s life. He is not chattel to be disposed of, but a person. Whatever legal protections the laws of our Commonwealth may presently deny to him, none can deny what the Creator has decreed. Do you see?”

At that point, Camden had felt a surge of energy, a small taste of what he imagined it must feel like if he were to be struck by lighting.

“Yes! Then if the General Assembly ever were to pass a law allowing for slaveholders to free slaves in their wills, that law would have to be passed during Isaac’s lifetime—as, indeed it was, in 1782. Freedom from the state of bondage only means anything to the slave themselves. Thus the contingency would have to occur or fail within the lifetimes of those slaves.”

“Precisely, Mr. Page. Precisely.”

The recess, as it turned out, was a short one. Less than a quarter of an hour if Camden had to judge, although he had not made note of the time either before or after Judge Carter had taken his leave from the bench.

“Mr. Page, if you please?” the judge began, almost before anyone had had time to sit down again after he had entered.

Camden ran through the argument just as he and Marshall had rehearsed and concluded, saying, “Thus, Your Honor, the will creates a contingent gift of freedom that inalienably attaches to the person of the slave himself. Although it is true that at the time he executed his last testament Mr. Tasker could not have known that the General Assembly would pass the Act of 1782, it is beyond dispute that the devise of manumission to Isaac Freeman, as one of the class of slaves to whom the devise was made, could only ever vest or fail within the life of any such person from amongst that group, all of whom are lives in being for purposes of the rule against perpetuities. Thank you.”

Judge Carter paused for a moment, a slight look of skepticism on his face, before clearing his throat and saying “Mr. Crannybrook, if you please?”

The prosecutor ran straight to the point that Marshall and Camden had anticipated: the devise to slaves “hereafter to be born.”

“Regardless of how Your Honor chooses to regard the points raised by my colleague, the fact remains that those who had not yet been born at the time of the will’s execution cannot serve as lives in being.”

Crannybrook continued on in that vein for several minutes more, but in reality the sum of his argument had been given in his first breath.

It seemed from his fidgeting that Judge Carter quickly realized the redundancy of the argument as well and cut off the prosecutor with a curt, “Thank you, counselor. I understand your argument. Have you any rebuttal, Mr. Page?”

“Yes, Your Honor. First, it is a bedrock principle of the law of nature and of nature’s God—as well the laws of this Commonwealth which owe their authority to that same natural law—that the children of a free mother are themselves also free.”

Seeing that the look of mild skepticism had returned to Judge Carter’s face, Camden quickly moved along to his next point.

“In addition, as to any children born between the time of the will’s making and the passage of the Act of 1782, this court should find that those children also would be the children of free persons because the freedom of their parents—a point Mr. Crannybrook does not and cannot contest—became vested de facto at the time of the will’s making. Those children, no less than any others, ought to be afforded their rights as the children of free persons.”

“Thank you, Mr. Page,” Judge Carter interjected. “The court will recess until 2 0’clock this afternoon when its ruling will be given.”

In a phenomenon that Camden was never able to explain, time seemed simultaneously to race ahead like the wind and crawl forward at a painfully slow pace. When the judge seated himself on the bench that afternoon Camden felt exhausted from hours of waiting, but also jolted back to the intensity of the courtroom as if no time had passed at all.

“Having considered the language of the will,” Judge Carter began, “along with the arguments of counsel and the treatises available to me—”

As the judge paused to clear his throat, the tension in the room smothered even the slightest noise.

“I find that no perpetuity was created. Thus, the devise is valid and, as the sole finder of fact in this case, I will give the provision due consideration. This court will stand in recess until tomorrow morning when counsel will present closing arguments. That is, Mr. Page, unless you have any further evidence to present.”

Camden’s head was swimming. He had known that his arguments were the strongest available to him, yet even with the assistance of so sharp a legal mind as John Marshall’s he was unsure whether the reasoning would carry the day.

“Mr. Page?” the judge intoned.

“Yes, Your Honor,” he said, rising hastily from his chair. “Rather, I mean, the defense has no further evidence and rests its case.”

“Very well.” Judge Carter banged a gavel and waddled in retreat from the bench with a noticeably greater air of determination than on previous days.

Before the door had even concealed the judge from the view of the mass that had crowded into the courtroom, there was a commotion that fell just short of an uproar, seemingly in equal parts confusion, jubilation, and frustration. Two bailiffs wasted no time in taking Isaac away, though it seemed to Camden that they took greater care in doing so this time. He whipped his head around just in time to see Georgiana’s back as she was ushering Sophia out the back of the courtroom. Though the longsuffering woman’s head hung low, her hands were raised toward the heavens.