About ninety middle school and high school students tromp into one of the courtrooms of the John Joseph Moakley Federal Courthouse. One of the teachers asks who wants to sit in the jury box; two-thirds of the students raise their hands.

The students have already studied the trial of Anthony Burns, a slave who, in 1854, left Virginia and arrived in Boston, Massachusetts. A few months after arriving, Burns is brought to trial under the Fugitive Slave Act. Abolitionists resist, and the trial becomes a symbol of all the political and social struggle surrounding slavery. 

As professional actors enact the drama not only of the courtroom, but of the streets and homes in the days before the trial, students watch silent and spellbound.

In the end, Anthony Burns is returned to his master, but the performance isn’t over: still in character, the actors ask the students, whom they call “honored senators of the State of Massachusetts,” to decide whether the judge in the case should be impeached for returning the slave. The question goes straight to the issue of judicial impartiality— should we remove judges for an unpopular opinion?

Hands go up again. Students ask questions such as, “Why did you take what Anthony Burns said as testimony and not as a confession?” and “He swore to tell the truth, and he told a lie. Isn’t that against the law?”

When one student says to the defense lawyer, “It seems to me that it was never proven Anthony Burns escaped. He said he fell asleep on a steamboat,” the lawyer says, “I humbly submit that I wish you were on my legal team.”

With their deliberations finished, students vote on the judge’s future. One young man, who had voted to remove the judge, serves as the foreman. Adopting the language and the tone of the actors, he stands and says, “We Senators have decided, by a vote of 70 to 20, that you shall remain in office.”

Yet, the event still isn’t over. Bridging the gap between the classroom and the professional world, a federal judge strolls to the front of the courtroom and asks the students, “Who here wants to be a lawyer?” Hands again fill the air. 

The judge walks around the room, asking students to talk about their ambitions and describing his own experience as a lawyer and judge. He asks one young woman, who says she would like to be a U.S. Attorney, to stand up and repeat the words all U.S. Attorneys say when they present a case. Her voice trembling, the young woman says, “My name is Taylor, and I represent the United States of America.