Chapter 13 Part IV

Unjust Deaths and a Deathly Justice

(Links to Part I, Part II, and Part III)

“Will Mr. Lincoln really sacrifice the lives of so many men to fight the South?” Jude paused before risking saying: “Why shouldn’t the North let the South go? It seems a solution of sorts. Even if we’d lost the Union then the North wouldn’t have to worry about slavery anymore.” 

Astonishment swept across Martin. “You dare stand there and tell me the North should let the South go? To perpetuate an evil? To perpetuate the sins we have lived with for so long? To incite the wrath of God on all of us? There is no justice in it!” 

Jude stopped.

Was slavery the original sin in the House of America?

He had not thought it while reading the Orestia plays, but surely Ernst must have with all his talk on original sin. Slavery was the evil introduced to America and divided Americans and turned brother against brother and unleashed a cycle of violence on the country and now promised a destructive war.

He now understood why Ernst wanted him to read Aeschylus’ plays. It wasn’t only about justice, it was about America, too.

What had even Lincoln once said? That a house divided could not stand, Jude grudgingly admitted, remembering the furore in the papers over the statement.

But Martin Royer was right, all the compromises the North gave to the slaveholding states only divided America further and whittled away at the pillars of freedom and liberty.

Jude suddenly became gloomy. 

“I don’t see a way out of it, Papa,” he murmured.  

Martin snorted. “I thought you a lawyer, and I be wrong! I have a fool standing in front of me. You cannot even see the right way.”