Chapter 669: The Bill

The next day, before breakfast, Wayne specifically flipped through the latest newspaper that came with the meat carriage.

Then he discovered that he seemed to have been deceived...

What a load of "special reports"!

There wasn't a single major headline related to it in so many newspapers.

Performing a keyword search on the front pages of various newspapers, beneath the headline announcing the formal approval of the Kankakee Statehood Bill in the Senate, there was indeed a small article with related content.

It stated that the State Assembly's investigative committee had convened a hearing yesterday regarding some state legislators suspected of electoral fraud, and Secretary of State Andrew Pryor, who is responsible for election oversight, had attended as scheduled and undergone questioning.

Holding the newspaper and about to reopen the political section to search again, Wayne's hand paused in mid-air, then immediately flipped back to the front page.

What?!

"The Kankakee Statehood Bill passed in the Senate?!"

As a local of Kankakee, Wayne wasn't actually surprised that the Kankakee Statehood Bill would pass.

After all, politicians like the mayor had been preparing for it for many years, and it was impossible for Kankakee not to become a state forever; the bill's passage was only a matter of time.

One reason he felt surprised was that for the bill to be formally passed, it needed to go through a full vote in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

America's Congress at this time didn't convene for most of the year. Since senators at this time were, in principle, supposed to remain in their constituencies for most of the time, and the Union's territory was not small, Congress was divided into two sessions, summer and winter, with the rest of the time being recess—no bills would be passed during recess.

However, Mr. Walter, the senator from Virginia, seemed to have been staying in Richmond all this time, making Wayne forget that it was still the federal congressional session.

He always felt that if the people who were supposed to vote hadn't left, then it would definitely be a while before the bill passed.

Thinking back carefully,

The first time he came to Virginia from Chicago, he met Mr. Underwood, the senator from Illinois, on the steam train.

At that time, senators were already starting to rush to Washington D.C., likely to avoid missing the congressional session or to prepare in advance for the passage or rejection of certain bills.

The reason Mr. Walter could occasionally be seen in Richmond was likely because Washington D.C. is right next to Virginia...

Alright.

Living close by sometimes truly allowed for freedom.

This also indicated that Mr. Walter had definitely gone to Washington D.C. by now, which was good news for Wayne.

With the boss in charge gone, the Detective Agency wouldn't have to worry about the local intelligence organization suddenly targeting them recently.

If Bishop Tiriel of the Cathedral could also go to St. George's Cathedral in New York City for some episcopal conference, that would be even better.

The Detective Agency would be completely unsupervised for a short period, and just doing a few small things in the Dock Area would almost be like doing whatever they wanted.

Alas,

Such things could only be imagined.

After all, the Cathedral still had the newly appointed treasurer and Merlin, among others.

His gaze fell on the report of the Kankakee Statehood Bill passing in the Senate. According to America's current system, a bill actually needs to pass both the Senate and the House of Representatives before being signed by the President.

At most, this could only be considered halfway through the process, or even less than halfway.

—According to the division of responsibilities between the two houses, bills related to the overall interests of the federation are mainly proposed by the Senate, while bills related to the interests of the people need to be proposed by the House of Representatives. The order of voting in the two houses is not completely fixed.

This means that if a legislator wants to obstruct the passage of a certain bill, they will have two opportunities to object, and the second obstruction will often be more “forceful” than the first.

Then, looking closely at the report's content, even Wayne realized something was off.

According to the federal "Autonomy Act" of that year, each state of the federation had the right to make its own laws and choose to become a "free state" or a "slave state."

However, the point of contention in this statehood bill was that Kankakee now had many towns that supported slavery, and since laws couldn't be retroactive, it was argued whether they should be deprived of their right to continue slavery after statehood.

The theoretically higher-ranking senators had not continued to speak out; instead, some representatives jumped out, saying that if this part of the content was not guaranteed, then they would definitely obstruct the passage of the statehood bill.

Some even suggested that Kankakee should simply be divided into two, with each forming a new state, or having two capitals within one state, allowing people to go wherever they preferred.

Although it still conformed to the spirit of the "Autonomy Act," if it were to be infinitely subdivided like this, then, in an extreme interpretation, perhaps every small town could also be divided into two, each supporting or opposing slavery.

But essentially, wasn't that still supporting slavery?

Even in sufficiently wealthy Virginia, not everyone owned Plantations and slaves.

If calculated by population percentage, then even Richmond could be considered a "relatively free city," as most citizens did not own slaves.

Given the extent of the bickering, Wayne felt that this statehood bill still had a lot of arguing ahead of it.

He wondered if it could pass in the House of Representatives before the end of this congressional session. If quick, the outcome would be known within a few months.

After hearing Wayne's words, Lina, who was also reading the newspaper beside him, had a different newspaper in her hand, but the front-page headline was likely the same content.

She thought of a very practical question, "If I bring Alicia back to Kankakee in the future, won't she just be free? A mixed-race slave girl's value isn't low; she could be exchanged for a lot of dollars."

"Theoretically, yes. But we're already discussing an employment contract with her now, which effectively means we've voluntarily given up a lot of specific control. As for her value, it will depend on your specific decision at the time; at least the Richmond court will side with you."

"Hmm..." Lina fell into contemplation.

Inessa also picked up a newspaper at this time. Actually, the Detective Agency's newspapers were mainly bought for her. As long as Inessa had read them, Wayne and Lina didn't even need to read them; they could just ask her directly if they had any questions later.

She quickly browsed the content, "After traveling to so many places, I think it might be better for Kankakee to become a free state. Although the situation in some northern states doesn't seem as prosperous and stable as Virginia, at least legally, no one has the right to arbitrarily deprive and control another person's life. At least that's a kind of progress."

Wayne could understand Inessa's thoughts. She carried the shackles of the Exorcist Association, and although the Exorcist Association did not use particularly strong control methods,

“Having shackles but not using them” and “having no shackles” were still completely different.

If Inessa at that time had been replaced by Wayne or Lina, putting aside whether they would become outlaws, at least Pastor Hark would probably have been abandoned halfway.

Accumulate contributions? Accumulate nothing.

Not even a counterattack would be considered polite.

After discussing the distant political news, the intelligence team now truly had new work. Since newspaper reporters were unreliable, Wayne's information from yesterday could only be investigated by them.

He also mentioned his guess that Mr. Walter should not be in Richmond now, suggesting that "Soften" and his team might not need to worry too much about conflicts with former colleagues in the local intelligence organization during their investigation.

"Really?" Lina, whose quick wit usually wasn't focused on political matters, specifically confirmed again upon hearing this.

This made Wayne feel a bit guilty: "I think the probability is not low. The statehood bill has caused such a big controversy now; even if we only consider the possible discussions and lobbying within Congress, he probably won't be in too much of a hurry to come back, unless there's some urgent matter to deal with."

"But from your look, what are you planning to do again?"

"'Soften' and his team recently found a secret stronghold of the local intelligence organization, a place they didn't know about before. I'm considering whether to take the opportunity to go and see."

"Mr. Walter isn't responsible for guarding the stronghold, so what's the difference whether he's there or not?"

"There's a big difference. It seems to be one of his secret offices, and there might be important documents or something."

"No!"

"Why?!"

"The Dock Area hasn't even been sorted out yet, and just one Secretary of State is troublesome enough. Don't provoke the local intelligence organization at a time like this. What if Mr. Walter really rushes back?"

"I can disguise myself as someone from the School of Life. No, no need to disguise, I still am. They might think it was done by a wild Extraordinary Person from the Old Continent."

"His office isn't going anywhere; you can go next time. Besides investigating the matter I just mentioned, if you have time recently, you might as well keep a closer eye on the Dock Area and see if you can find any smuggling channels."

"Hmm... that works too. Just remember not to object next time, okay?"