"Jefferson was a damned Virginian," the man from Maine sneered. "Give me Adams and Hamilton any day." More nods, these from all around the big room. Founding Fathers from states no longer in the USA had a low reputation north of the Mason-Dixon line these days, and had ever since the War of Secession.

"Do you deny, sir, that they are human beings?" Flora asked. "Do you deny that they possess those rights I named?"

"They are in a foreign country," the Congressman from Maine replied. "I deny that they are any business of the USA."

He got more nods, from fellow Democrats, from the handful of Republicans and Freedom Party men, and even from a few Socialists. To her dismay, Flora had seen that before. Socialists spoke on behalf of racial equality, but couldn't get too far ahead of the people who voted them into office. That was how they rationalized it, anyhow.

"Congressman Moran, would you say the same if these persecuted people were Irish?" Flora asked sweetly.

"Since they aren't Irish, the question does not apply." Moran was too smart to answer that one the way she asked it.

Because he was, she waited for Speaker La Follette to gavel down his interruption and then introduced her motion of censure against the Confederate States. She knew it would fail; the next motion passed censuring the Confederate States for the way they treated their Negroes would be the first. But she had to make the effort. It wasn't as if Jews didn't know pogroms, too. News out of Russia and the Kingdom of Poland (which bore about the same relationship to Germany as the Republic of Quebec did to the USA) wasn't good.

After the House adjourned, she went across the street to her office. A newsboy waving the Philadelphia Inquirer shouted, "Confederates ask to enlarge their army! Read all about it!"

"I certainly do want to read about that!" Flora exclaimed, and gave him a nickel. He handed her a paper, and smiled broadly when she didn't wait for change.

She spread the Inquirer out on her desk. That was the lead headline, all right. She zoomed through the story. President Featherston, apparently, had requested permission to boost the Confederate Army to a size significantly larger than that allowed by the treaty ending the Great War. Featherston was quoted as saying, "These soldiers will be used only for internal defense. We have uprisings against the lawful authority of our government in several states, and need the extra manpower to put them down."

Hoover hadn't said yes and hadn't said no. A Powel House spokesman had said the president of the United States would give the request serious consideration. Flora wondered what he would do. As a Democrat, he would normally favor a hard line against the CSA. But, as a Democrat, he would also normally favor putting down uprisings of the proletariat, no matter how justified they might be.

Flora wondered how she ought to feel about the request herself. Up till Jake Featherston became president of the Confederate States, the Socialists had favored a softer line with the CSA, easing the country's return to the family of nations. Some still did. How could the Confederacy become a normal country with a rebellion sputtering in its heartland? But how could one keep from sympathizing with the rebels, considering what they'd been through before picking up rifles (or, as Featherston claimed, cleaning the grease off the ones they'd hidden away in 1916)?

That last made up her mind. She dialed Powel House, wondering how long it would be before these newfangled telephones sent operators into extinction along with the passenger pigeon and the American bison. She worked her way through three secretaries before finally securing an appointment with President Hoover.

When she told her husband that evening what she'd done, Hosea Blackford made a sour face. "He won't listen to you. You're my wife. That's plenty of reason right there for him not to listen to you."

"This is foreign policy," Flora answered. "Foreign policy should be bipartisan. You said so yourself, often enough."

"This is Hoover." To put it mildly, Blackford did not care for his successor. "You'd do better to recommend the opposite of what you really want. You might have some chance of getting it then."

Powel House, on Third Street, was a three-story structure of red brick, with wide steps leading up to the broad porch and its wrought-iron railings. Philadelphia's last pre-Revolutionary mayor had lived there. Since the Second Mexican War, it had also replaced the White House in Washington as the chief presidential residence.

The reception hall onto which the street door opened was large and impressive, with highly polished mahogany wainscoting gleaming a mellow red-brown. The banister leading up to President Hoover's second-floor office was also of mahogany, the spindles fine examples of fancy lathework. When she'd lived here, Flora had often admired them. Now, worried as she was, she hardly gave them a glance.

Hoover's bulldog features twisted into a smile when she came in. "Good to see you, Mrs. Blackford," He waved her to a chair. "Please sit down. Make yourself comfortable." He didn't say, Make yourself at home. She'd been at home here. Had the election of 1932 turned out differently, she and Hosea would still be at home here. Hoover went on, "What can I do for you, Congresswoman?"

"Thank you for your time." Perhaps because she didn't like President Hoover, Flora took care to be especially polite. "I've come to ask you to tell President Featherston you do not approve of his proposed expansion of the Confederate Army. He will use it for nothing but the oppression of his own people."

"I agree. That is how he will use it," Hoover said, and astonished hope flamed in Flora. The president continued, "That is why I am disposed to permit the expansion."

Flora stared. "I don't understand… Mr. President."

"If I thought President Featherston intended to use his increased Army against the United States, I would oppose his enlargement of it with every fiber of my being. But I do believe he will use it only for the purpose he says he intends: putting down the Negro uprisings troubling several of his states. Any nation, whether friendly to the United States or not, is entitled to internal peace, stability, and security. If some ill-advised individuals disturb its tranquility, it has the right to use force to put them down."

"But, Mr. President, one of the reasons the Negroes are in arms against the CSA is that the white majority will not give them-how did you phrase it?-peace, stability, and tranquility," Flora answered. "The Confederate States made their bed through oppression. Shouldn't they have to lie in it?"

"Radical elements have controlled blacks in the Confederate States for too long," Hoover said. "This is not their first rising, if you recall."

"Oh, yes. Their last one went a long way toward winning us the war," Flora replied. "Don't we owe them a debt of gratitude for that?"

The president thrust out his chin. "We owe no foreigners any debts," he said proudly. "We are at peace with the world. Even the Japanese." That was a dig at her husband, in whose presidency the war with Japan had broken out.

It was also an infallible sign she wouldn't get what she wanted. "I hope you will not regret this decision, Mr. President," she said, rising to her feet.

"My conscience is clear," Hoover said.

"Which is not the same as being right." Since she wouldn't get what she wanted, she did take the last word.

Grunting, Cincinnatus Driver eased the last sofa off his dolly and down to the floor of the furniture shop's storeroom. "Here you go, Mr. Averill. It's pretty furniture. I hope it sells good."

"Oh, Lord, so do I," the shopowner replied. He signed off on the paperwork Cincinnatus had given him, then handed back the clipboard.