American Empire: Blood and Iron - By Harry Turtledove Page 0,220

herself in it. The excitement that built in her was hot and fierce, almost sexual.

She fought it down. The farmers and factory hands out there didn’t try. They didn’t even know they might try. They’d come to be stirred, to be roused. The ceremony had started that work. Jake Featherston would finish it.

He dropped his hands. Instantly, the Freedom Party faithful in white and butternut stopped chanting. The cries of “Freedom!” went on for another few seconds. Then the people in the ordinary part—much the bigger part—of the crowd got the idea, too. A little raggedly, the chant ended.

Jake leaned forward, toward the microphone. Anne discovered she too was leaning forward, toward him. Angrily, she straightened. “God damn him,” she muttered under her breath. Tom gave her a curious look. She didn’t explain. She didn’t want to admit even to herself, let alone to anyone else, that Jake Featherston could get her going like that.

“Columbia,” Jake said. “I want you all to know, I’m glad—I’m proud—to set foot in the capital of the first state of the Confederacy.” He talked in commonplaces. His voice was harsh, his accent none too pleasing. Somehow, none of that mattered. When he spoke, thousands upon thousands of people hung on his every word. Anne was one of them. She knew she was doing it, but couldn’t help herself. Featherston was formidable in a small setting. In front of a crowd, he was much more than merely formidable.

Through cheers, he repeated, “Yes, sir, I’m proud to set foot in the capital of the first state of the Confederacy—because I know South Carolina is going to help me, going to help the Freedom Party, give the Confederate States back to the people who started this country in the first place, the honest, hard-working white men and women who make the CSA go and don’t get a dime’s worth of credit for it. Y’all remember dimes, right? That’d be a couple million dollars’ worth of credit nowadays, I reckon.”

The crowd laughed and cheered. “He’s full of crap,” Tom said. “The people who started this country were planters and lawyers, just about top to bottom. Everybody knows that.”

“Everybody who’s had a good education knows that,” Anne said. “How many of those folks out there do you figure went to college?” Before Tom could answer, she shook her head. “Never mind now. I want to hear what he’s going to say.”

“Now I know the Whigs are running Wade Hampton V, and I know he’s from right here in South Carolina,” Featherston went on. “I reckon some of you are thinking of voting for him on account of he’s from here. You can do that if you want to, no doubt about it. But I’ll tell you something else, friends: I thought this here was an election for president, not for king. His Majesty Wade Hampton the Fifth.” He stretched out the name and the number that went with it, then shook his head in well-mimed disbelief. “Good Lord, folks, if we vote him in, we’ll be right up there with the Englishmen and George V.”

“He is good,” Tom said grudgingly as the crowd exploded into more laughter. Anne nodded. She was leaning forward again.

“Now, Hampton V means well, I don’t doubt it for a minute,” Jake said. “The Whigs meant well when Woodrow Wilson got us into the war, too, and they meant well when a War Department full of Thirds and Fourths and Fifths fought it for us, too. And you’d best believe they meant well when they stuck their heads in the sand instead of noticing the niggers were going to stab us in the back. If you like the way the war turned out, if you like paying ten million dollars for breakfast—this week; it’ll be more next Wednesday—go right ahead and vote for Wade Hampton V. You’ll get six more years of what we’ve been having.

“Or if you want a real change, you can vote for Mr. Layne. The Radical Liberals’ll give you change, all right. I’ll be…switched if they won’t. They’ll take us back into United States, is what they’ll do. Ainsworth Layne went to Harvard, folks—Harvard! Can you believe it? It’s true, believe it or not. And the Rad Libs want him to be president of the CSA? I’m sorry, friends, but I’ve seen enough damnyankees come down on us already. I don’t need any homegrown ones, thank you kindly.”

That drew more laughter and applause than his attack on Wade Hampton had done.