God on the far side of it, so they can divide up the nation without interference."
"I'm sorry to have brought your old nemesis into this."
"You didn't," said John. "I did. Or rather, he did. You'd think that he'd stop getting under my skin, but it galls me that his little country is going to be part of the United States, and mine isn't."
"Isn't yet," said Hezekiah.
"Isn't in my lifetime," said John, "and I'm selfish enough to wish I could have lived to see it. The United States needs this Puritan society as a counter-influence to Tom Jefferson's intolerantly secular one. Mark my words, when a government pretends that it is the highest judge of its own actions, the result is not freedom as Jefferson says, but chaos and oppression. When he shuts religion out of government, when men of faith are not listened to, then all that remains is venality, posturing, and ambition."
"I hope you're wrong about that, sir," said Hezekiah. "Many of us look to the United States as the next stage of the American experiment. New England has come this far, but we are stagnant now."
"As this trial proves." John sighed. "I wish I were wrong, Hezekiah. But I'm not. Tom Jefferson claims to stand for freedom, and charges me with trying to promote some kind of theocracy or aristocracy. But there is no freedom down his road."
"How can we know that, sir?" said Hezekiah. "No one has ever been down this road?"
"I have," said John, and regretted it at once.
Hezekiah looked at him, startled, but then smiled. "No matter how precise your imagination, sir, I doubt it will be accepted as evidence."
But it wasn't imagination. John had seen. Had seen it as clearly as he saw Hezekiah standing before him now. It was a sort of vision that God had vouchsafed to him all his life, that he could see how power flowed and where it led, in groups of men both large and small. It was a strange and obscure sort of vision, which he could not explain to anyone else and had never tried, not even to Abigail, but it allowed him to chart a course through all the theories and philosophies that swirled and swarmed throughout the British colonies. It had allowed him to see through Tom Jefferson. The man talked freedom, but he could never quite bring himself to free his slaves. Abolitionists criticized him for hypocrisy, but they missed the point. He wasn't a lover of freedom who had neglected to free his slaves; he was a man who loved to control other people, and did it by talking about freedom. Jefferson had stood naked in front of the world when he tried to silence his critics with the Alien and Sedition Acts almost as soon as Appalachee won its freedom from the Crown. So much for his love of freedom - you could have freedom of speech as long as you didn't use it to oppose Jefferson's policies! Yet as soon as the acts were repealed - after years of hounding Jefferson's enemies into silence or exile - people still talked about him as the champion of liberty!
John Adams knew Tom Jefferson, and that's why Tom Jefferson hated John Adams, because John really was what Jefferson only pretended to be: a man who loved freedom, even the freedom of those who disagreed with him. Even Tom Jefferson's freedom. It made them unequal in battle. It handed the victory to Jefferson.
"Are you all right, sir?" asked Hezekiah.
"Just fighting over old battles in my mind," said John. "It's the problem with age. You have all these rusty arguments, and no quarrel to use them in. My brain is a museum, but alas, I'm the only visitor, and even I am not terribly interested in the displays."
Hezekiah laughed, but there was affection in it. "I would love nothing better than to visit there. But I'm afraid I'd be tempted to loot the place, and carry it all away with me."
To John's surprise, Hezekiah's words brought tears to his eyes. "Would you, Hezekiah?" He blinked rapidly and his eyes cleared. "You see, now, you've moved this old man with your kindness. You found the one bribe I'm susceptible to."
"It wasn't flattery, sir."
"I know," said John. "It was honor. May God forgive me, but I've never been able to purge my heart of the desire for it."
"There's no sin in it, John. The honor of good men is won only by goodness. It's