Legacy: A Novel

by James A. Michener

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

  This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

  Article XVIIId

  SECTION 1 After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

  SECTION 2 The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

  SECTION 3 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

  Article XIXe

  The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

  The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

  Article XXf

  SECTION 1 The term of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3rd day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

  SECTION 2 The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3rd day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

  SECTION 3 If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

  SECTION 4 The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

  SECTION 5 Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.

  SECTION 6 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

  Article XXIg

  SECTION 1 The Eighteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

  SECTION 2 The transportation or importation into any State, Territory or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors in violation of the laws thereof is hereby prohibited.

  SECTION 3 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

  Article XXIIh

  SECTION 1 No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which the Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

  SECTION 2 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

  Article XXIIIi

  SECTION 1 The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:

  A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purpose of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

  SECTION 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

  Article XXIVj

  SECTION 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

  SECTION 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

  Article XXVk

  SECTION 1 In case of the removal of the President from office or his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

  SECTION 2 Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take the Office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both houses of Congress.

  SECTION 3 Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

  SECTION 4 Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments, or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

  Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department, or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within 48 hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within 21 days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within 21 days after Congress is required to assemble, d
etermines by two-thirds vote of both houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

  Article XXVIl

  SECTION 1 The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age, or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of age.

  SECTION 2 The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

  Proposed Article XXVIIm

  SECTION 1 Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

  SECTION 2 The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

  SECTION 3 This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

  * The first ten Amendments were adopted in 1791.

  † Ratified in 1795; proclaimed in 1798.

  ‡ Adopted in 1804.

  § Adopted in 1865.

  ‖ Adopted in 1868.

  a Adopted in 1868.

  b Adopted in 1913.

  c Adopted in 1913.

  d Adopted in 1919. Repealed by the 21st Amendment.

  e Adopted in 1920.

  f Adopted in 1933.

  g Adopted in 1933.

  h Adopted in 1951.

  i Adopted in 1961.

  j Adopted in 1964.

  k Adopted in 1967.

  l Adopted in 1971.

  m Proposed to states for ratification 22 March 1972, with terminal date 22 March 1979. Extension of three years and three months granted 6 October 1978. Amendment failed of ratification 30 June 1982, and became dead as of that date.—J.A.M.

  Be sure to read James A. Michener’s newest bestselling novel,

  ALASKA

  currently available in hardcover from Random House.

  Beginning with the prehistoric immigration of Siberians, ALASKA is the rugged epic of our 49th state. Explored by Danish navigator Vitus Bering, upon the order of Russia’s Peter the Great, Alaska became part of the civilized world in the 18th century. Sold to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million, this untapped giant became a frontier land.

  Through the lives of the cossacks, Eskimo chiefs, missionaries, shamans, hunters, schoolmarms, businessmen, lovers and dreamers, here is an astonishing flow of events that includes the Gold Rush, the birth of the salmon industry, the discovery of oil, the construction of the Alcan Highway—and the tragic dislocation of the native Eskimo.

  It is a saga of fabulous natural phenomena and vivid human exploit as only Michener can write it.

  What follows is an excerpt from ALASKA by America’s greatest storyteller,

  James A. Michener

  Vitus Bering and James Cook, two of the grandest names in Alaskan history, had mournful ends, the first dying of scurvy on a bleak, treeless, wind-swept island at the age of sixty-one, his life and his work incomplete. The second, having conquered scurvy and the farthest oceans, died at fifty-one because of his own impetuousness on a beautiful tropical island far to the south. The oceans of the world were made more available by the explorations of such men.

  But there were in these years another kind of explorer, adventurer, and in 1780 such a one wandered almost accidentally into Lapak Bay in a small, incredibly tough little ship called the Evening Star, a two-masted, square-rigged whaling brig out of Boston. It was captained by a small, wiry man as resolute morally as his ship was physically. He was Noah Pym, forty-one years old and already a veteran of the dreadful gales at Cape Horn, the trading marts at Canton, the lovely coastline of Hawaii, and all the vast empty spaces of the Pacific where whales might hide, for if his ship was not big, it was valiant, and in it Pym was ready to challenge any storm or any group of hostile natives gathered on a beach.

  Unlike Bering and Cook, Pym never left port with support from his government or cheering notice from his fellow citizens. The most he could expect would be a one-line notice in the Boston newspaper: ‘On this day the Evening Star, Noah Pym with crew of twenty-one, sailed for South Seas, intended stay six years.’ And as for the great nations agreeing among themselves to give this tough little fellow free passage, they were far more likely to sink him on sight in the supposition that he was sailing for the enemy. Indeed, he had in his time fought off the warships of both France and England, but this was a misnomer, for what he really did was maintain a sharp lookout and run like a frightened demon at the first sight of a sail that might prove threatening.

  Zagoskin and Innokenti were out in their two-man kayak chasing sea otters when the Evening Star hove into sight off the south shore of Lapak Island, and they were astounded when a voice from the aft deck called out in good Russian: ‘Ho there! We need water and stores.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Innokenti called, establishing that he was in charge.

  ‘Whaler Evening Star, Boston, Noah Pym commanding.’

  Innokenti, surprised that a ship from that far distance should have found Lapak Island, shouted back: ‘Good harbor on the north shore south of the volcano!’ and with Zagoskin paddling strongly from the rear seat, he led the way.

  When the ship anchored between the shore and the volcano, Innokenti and Zagoskin climbed aboard and satisfied themselves in two minutes that whereas the Evening Star did carry one gun fore, it was not a warship. Neither man had ever seen a whaler before, but under the tutelage of the sailor who had called to them in Russian, they quickly learned what the procedures were, and just as quickly saw that Captain Noah Pym out of Boston was, though small, a leathery individual with whom it would not be profitable to quarrel accidentally.

  They learned that this amazing little brig which had traveled so far—Cape Horn, China, a try at Japan, Hawaii—had in its crew sailors who could speak most of the languages of the Pacific, so that wherever the ship anchored, someone could conduct business with the natives. Only one man spoke Russian, Seaman Atkins, but he loved to talk, and for two rewarding days he, Innokenti and Captain Pym traded information on the Pacific.

  Pym, once the ice was broken, enjoyed the swift interchange: ‘Six men in Boston own the Evening Star and they award me a full share for serving as their captain.’

  ‘Do you also receive pay?’ Innokenti asked.

  ‘Small but regular. My real pay comes from my captain’s share of the whale oil we deliver and the sale of goods we bring home from China.’

  ‘Do the sailors share?’

  ‘Like me, small pay, big rewards if we catch whales.’ Pym pointed to a sturdy young fellow, a New Englander almost as hefty as Zagoskin and with the same kind of scowl: ‘That’s Kane, our harpooner. Very skilled. Gets double if he succeeds.’

  ‘Why have you come into our waters?’ Innokenti asked, and Harpooner Kane frowned at the word our, but Captain Pym answered courteously: ‘Whales. They must be up there,’ and he pointed toward the arctic.

  Zagoskin broke in rudely: ‘We see them coming past here sometimes,’ and he would have said more had not Innokenti signaled that this was privileged information. The baldheaded Russian was obviously irritated by this tacit reprimand, and both Pym and Atkins caught the warning, but neither commented.

  On the third day the men of the Evening Star met Trofim Zhdanko, now in his late seventies and still unbearded out of his respect for the memory of Tsar Peter, and they trusted him from the start, in contrast to their rejection of the two younger men. The old fellow, at last in the company of someone who could speak Russian, poured out his recollection of Captain Bering, that hard winter on Bering Island, and the remarkable accomplishments of the German scientist Georg Steller: ‘He went to four universities and knew everything. He saved my life because he made this brew of weeds and things that cured scurvy.’

  ‘Now what might that be?’ Pym asked. He had the habit of staring hard at anyone with whom he was speaking on
important subjects, his small eyes closing almost to beads, his close-cropped head of brown hair bent forward.

  ‘Scurvy is what kills sailors.’

  ‘I know that,’ Pym said impatiently. ‘But what was in the brew this Steller made?’ Trofim did not know exactly: ‘Weeds and kelp, that I remember. First time I tasted it I spit it out, but Steller told me, right over there it was, behind that group of rocks, he said: “You may not want it but your blood does,” and later on, when we spent that dreadful winter on Bering Island, I looked forward to the little amount of brew he allowed me each day. It tasted far better than honey, for I could feel it rushing into my blood to keep me alive.’

  ‘Do you still drink it?’

  ‘No. Seal meat, especially blubber and guts, they’re just as good. You eat seal you never have scurvy.’

  ‘What will happen up here?’ Pym asked. ‘I mean Spain, England, France, maybe even China? Don’t they all have an interest in this area?’ And he pointed eastward to the unknown area which the Great Shaman Azazruk had once called Alaxsxaq, the Great Land.

  ‘It’s already Russian,’ Trofim said without hesitation. ‘I was with Captain Bering when he discovered it for the tsar.’

  On the evening before departure Captain Pym broached with Zhdanko the navigational problem which had brought him to Lapak, and it was premonitory that he did not reveal his questions to either of the two Russian leaders, for he already distrusted them: ‘Zhdanko, what do you know of the oceans north of here?’

  Since it was obvious that Pym was toying with the idea of sailing north, a difficult adventure, as Zhdanko had learned from his own explorations beyond the Arctic Circle, the cossack felt he must warn the American: ‘Very dangerous. Ice comes crashing down in winter.’