The Hammock Papers: Equal.

04 June 2020

Equal.

October 24, 1770. Boston, Massachusetts.

John Adams’ client, Captain Thomas Preston, was probably the most hated man in Boston, at least among those agitating for American independence.

Seven months earlier, Preston led a handful of British soldiers (a.k.a. redcoats) to the King’s Custom House to protect a fellow solider being attacked by a large group of irate Colonists. Though details are sketchy, in the end, the soldiers fired into the crowd and six colonists lay dead, with five wounded.

Preston and the soldiers were immediately arrested and American patriots sprang into action. Some Colonists portrayed the events as an unprovoked attack and named it the “Boston Massacre.” Paul Revere made his famous engraving showing Preston and the soldiers firing callously into the crowd. Tensions between the British and Americans were at an all-time high.

But despite the perilousness of the situation, several men—like John Adams—stepped forward to ensure that the soldiers were provided a proper legal defense in court. It didn’t matter to Adams that his clients were hated British soldiers, or that Massachusetts could soon be at war with these very men. In his eyes, all individuals deserved to be treated equally in the eyes of the law. He would help enshrine this dedication for our country.

Adams was a respected lawyer, statesman, and future president of the United States, but he risked his reputation and the wrath of his countrymen to ensure justice was delivered fairly. It would not be the first time he displayed his commitment to the equal protection of the law.

CONNECT

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL