Clockwork Souls (5 page)

The jury found in favor of the plaintiff, the fine being
calculated at the cost of the automaton, its repairs, and the loss of its use.
Some of the onlookers gasped at the amount, far more than the value of a slave.

After the court adjourned, Turner went up to the jury and
attempted to shake their hands; some accepted, but others turned away, clearly
uncomfortable.

Only a few of the onlookers left the courtroom, and most of
those had been standing at the back. Thomas got to his feet and the murmurs
died. Turner, in the midst of thanking one of the jurors, stepped back.

Thomas faced the bench. “Judge, I have not always acted
according to my conscience, at times out of fear of losing what little I
possess. Now that burden has been removed from me, so I say to thee, to Durham
Turner, and to all in this courtroom, that if anyone knows a fugitive—slave or
automaton—who needs shelter, send him to me that I might befriend him!”

Taney glowered at Thomas, but Thomas did not flinch. Words
poured from his mouth as if he were not their originator, but only the voice of
the spirit that moved through him. He sensed the close attention with which his
arguments were received.

“My friends, are we not called to regard all mankind as our brethren?
Was the soul placed in the automaton once a man? And must he then be our
brother, for whom we ought to have the most tender care?”

His voice swelled as he exhorted the audience to, “Quench
not the spirit, but live in love and unity one with another! The same
expression of God’s love dwells in all of us, male and female, black and white,
slave and free—
and sheathed in metal
!
It is as vile a practice, and as contrary to the laws of God, to keep a metal
person in bondage as it is to enslave another man, for both are living souls!”

At moments, there was such a profound silence, he might have
been in Meeting. Now and again, a member of the audience hung his head or
someone else hissed their displeasure.

“Consider, friends, that a black man may escape to a free
state and thereby become free. Consider that he may purchase his freedom and
that of his family. But what of the automaton? We have heard testimony in this
court that the boundaries of the states and their laws regarding slavery are of
no account in this case. This automaton was pursued and then seized in
Pennsylvania, in what ought to have been a place of sanctuary. Then he was
executed without trial. His light was forever extinguished. And for what
reason?”

Thomas paused. For the last few minutes, he had been so
caught up in his ministry as to become unaware of his listeners. Now he saw
them, the reddened faces and those nodding in agreement. Toward the back, a
small, mousy woman, whom he had noticed previously, sat as if rapt, a journal
book open on her lap. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

“For the reason of following the leadings of the spirit, for
answering the demands of conscience! Even without having been instructed, this
automaton understood the great teaching from the Gospel of Luke—
As ye would that men should do to you, do ye
also to them likewise.
Friends, we are commanded that if a stranger
sojourns with us, we must not vex him, but shall love him as ourselves. How can
it be love to enslave a soul and then destroy it for speaking God’s truth?”

A fever seized him as he saw Adam no longer as a slave or a
tortured soul but as a martyr, even as many of his own faith had met the same
fate. He found the insight so moving that, for a moment, he could not find the
words. But then, as if a floodgate had opened within him, phrases thundered
from his mouth. He scarcely knew what he said, so overcome was he with awe and
fire. His limbs trembled, but his voice did not. When he paused to draw breath,
the room still echoed with his words.

“A martyr? A holy saint?” sneered Durham Turner. “That piece
of worthless machinery? What’s next—setting free our cotton gins? I’ve heard
enough of this balderdash!” He strode from the courtroom.

Thomas sagged, the passion that had fueled his words spent.
His ministry had lasted for over an hour. He gathered himself and returned to
the defendant’s table, where John Wales waited. They were joined a moment later
by one of the jurors.

“Old man, I came here with my mind set against you. Having
heard you, I now believe every word you have said. I have done you an
injustice.”

“Not me, friend,” Thomas replied. “Look rather at thy
dealings with the unfortunate and oppressed, and then address thy concern to
thy own conscience. Never advocate for the vile custom of slavery, whether of a
black man or an automaton.”

An elderly man, by his plain dress and hat a fellow Quaker
although one Thomas did not know, stopped for a moment, said, “Thee was well
favored,” and quietly departed.

Last of all was the mousy woman, the one who had been so affected
by what Thomas said. She clasped his hand in both of hers, her eyes still
reddened with weeping.

“Oh, sir! Your words have wrung my heart! I had not known
there was such goodness in men—or such evil! I am . . . I am
writing a book, you see, on the sufferings of the Negro slaves. John Jewett of
the
National Era
has expressed
interest in publishing it in serial form. Now I see I must enlarge my story to
include those poor souls who inhabit the automata. I only hope I can be as
persuasive as you have been.”

Thomas extracted his hand as gently as he could. She was so
earnest, still quivering with the intensity of her fervor. Such zeal might
incite revolutions, start wars, or bring a nation to its knees.

“Would you . . . I would like to correspond
with you,” she said, “to gain more particulars about this automaton in order to
better depict the plight of its kind. I mean, of
his
kind.”

Perhaps there might be hope for reason and tolerance, for
fellowship and the “Spirit that delights to do no evil.”

Thomas gave the woman his address and received in exchange a
lady’s fine calling card. After she left, he took the card out of his pocket
and studied it.

Mrs. Harriet
Beecher Stowe

Cincinnati,
Ohio.

She’d come a long way to hear him. He did not doubt she
would go even further.

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Nancy Jane Moore

New Year’s Day had been unusually warm, but several days
into 1863 a cold wind blew in from the northeast. All day long both slave and
free on the Calvert tobacco plantation along the Patuxent River found excuses
to drop by the workshop where Jasmine was welding metal plates together to form
shells for the automatons popularly called metalmen. Though the fire powering
the generator for her welding torch was the primary attraction, most took the opportunity
to share a bit of gossip.

Charles Calvert, owner of the plantation and of Jasmine,
wanted as many metalmen as possible in time for spring planting, so Jasmine
didn’t take a break from her work for most of the visitors, simply offering a
smile and pretending she could hear over the roar of her torch. But when Benjamin
stopped in, he motioned her to turn it off.

“Gonna be a meetin’ tonight,” he told her. “Davy’s been reading
up on Mr. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and he’s gonna tell us what it
means.”

“What time?”

“’Bout midnight. Gotta wait until the white folks is asleep,
so everybody can come. Even your mama.”

Jasmine’s mama, Olivia, was lady’s maid to Calvert’s wife. The
plantation had come from the wife’s family; Calvert had started out with next
to nothing and married into money, though he liked to pretend he was descended
from the Calverts who founded Maryland.

“I’ll be there, Mr. Benjamin. And I’ll let folks know when
they come by here.”

“Good girl.”

Jasmine had left girlhood behind her some time ago but
Benjamin was old enough to be her grandfather. She’d always be a girl to him.

She turned the torch off again when Calvert himself dropped
by. “I just wanted to see how much progress you have made.”

“You’ll have twenty-five more metalmen for spring planting,
sir.” Jasmine showed him the ten finished housings. “The inner workings take
longer to make than the shells, but I got a good start on them before Christmas.”

“Excellent, excellent,” he said. “You do a damn site better
work than that Scotsman ever did. Beats me how you were able to pick up so much
from him that you could outshine him, but you’ve more than proved yourself.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jasmine wondered what he wanted. Charles Calvert
never threw compliments around.

“Jasmine, I’ve got a proposition for you. If you can make me
a hundred more of these metalmen by September, I’ll give you your freedom
papers.”

Freedom papers. She forced herself to stay calm, the better
to negotiate with him. “That’s a powerful lot of metalmen, Mr. Charles. I might
need some help to get it all done.”

He frowned. “Could the metalmen help out?”

“I’d have to make ones more flexible than the ones for
planting and harvesting. It takes more coordination to do what I do.”

“Do that, then. A machine making a machine. A fine idea. While
you’re at it, make some that can serve tea and other house chores.”

Jasmine bristled at the term “machine.” She spent too much
time with the metal creatures to think of them as something like a plow. But
she kept her disapproval out of her voice. “And I’m gonna need more gold, sir.
We don’t have near enough to make the inner workings of that many metalmen. I’ll
need more steel and wire, too.”

“Gold is expensive. I don’t want to get any more than you
need.”

“No, sir.” Jasmine already had a stash of gold she’d set aside
from each set of metalmen she’d made, but she’d been careful not to take too
much.

“Make me up a list.” He had lost his temper years back when
he found out she was learning to read and write––yelled at his wife, threatened
Olivia with being sold down south, and banished Jasmine from the house and her
position as a playmate to his legitimate daughters. But now he acted as if it
had been his idea all along.

“Yes, sir. And sir, you will free my daughter along with me,
won’t you?”

“She’s still a baby, right? Not working age?”

“Oh, no sir. She’s barely three years old.” Little Alexandra
was almost five, but younger was better. If he thought she was old enough to
work, he’d keep her.

He nodded.

“And we’ll need a bit of money, just ’til we can get
settled.”

“I swear I don’t know why I put up with you. But, yes, I’ll
give you a few dollars. There’s just one other thing, though. I don’t want any
of these metalmen ensouled. Not the ones you’re making now, not the other
hundred. You get me.”

Now that was odd. As far as she knew, the metalmen she had
made for the Calverts’ use had never been ensouled. The Calverts were Catholic
and the pope had banned ensoulment. The man she’d learned the trade from hadn’t
been Catholic—hadn’t been much of anything—but he’d never cared whether the
metalmen had souls. To him they were just machines. To him Jasmine had been
little better than a machine, albeit one he could use for pleasure as well as
work.

She wondered why Calvert would mention ensoulment, but she
wasn’t foolish enough to ask. It didn’t matter. He was offering her freedom. “Whatever
you want, sir.”

The meeting was held out in the field where the Calvert
slaves had their gardens. It was a safe place for a meeting; anyone seeing the
fires they’d made would assume the slaves were working their plots. There was
never enough time during the day. You could grow greens in the winter in
Maryland, if you put your mind to it, and most people did.

Olivia and the cook were the last ones to arrive. “I didn’t
think that woman would ever go to bed,” Olivia whispered to Jasmine. “It’s like
she knew she was keeping me from something.”

Benjamin cleared his throat. “Davy’s gonna read us the
proclamation.”

Davy was a few years younger than Jasmine, and her
half-brother. She’d taught him to read and write to solace him after his mother—another
house slave—had been sold south because she’d made Charles Calvert mad one too
many times. It was an open secret on the place that both Davy and Jasmine were
Calvert’s children, though he never acknowledged it. Perhaps the freedom deal
was his way of recognizing it, Jasmine thought. But that didn’t make a lot of
sense, given the kind of man he was.

“This is what President Lincoln said. ‘That on the first day of
January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three,
all persons held as slaves,
including
both human beings and ensouled automatons
, within any State or designated
part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the
United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free’.”