"You'll explain the drama to me to-day when the curtain rises?"
"If I can."
"I'll be so much obliged—" he paused and the even white teeth smiled pleasantly. "I'm pretty well up on American history but confess a little puzzled to-day. Your Southern Senators are really going to surrender their power here without a struggle?"
"What do you mean?" the girl asked with a slight frown.
"That your Democratic party has still a majority in both the House and the Senate. If the Southern members simply sit still in their places, the incoming administration of Abraham Lincoln will be absolutely powerless. The new President can not even call a cabinet to his side without their consent."
"The North has elected their President," Jennie answered with decision. "The South scorns to stoop to the dishonor of cheating them out of it. They've won the election. They can have it. The South will go and build a government of her own—as we built this one—"
"And fight twenty-three million people of the North?"
"If forced to—yes!"
"With the certainty of an uprising of your slaves at home?"