Jefferson Lewis sees secession as inevitable—but not war. He has years to prepare the scheme, manage the departure and reintegration of the South.

SYNOPSIS:

Jefferson Lewis, Michigan farmer and self-taught political observer, sees the Compromise of 1850 with far less delight than most of his countrymen. More importantly, its news comes to him while he reads history, and the parallels he draws between the South and Cromwell's England are disturbing. Simply put, the agrarian states are incapable of running proper civil administrations—their departure is inevitable, and so is their collapse as an independent polity.

Lewis's discussion of these conclusions reaches the ears of leading Whigs, like Thaddeus Stevens and Salmon Chase. They charge him with handling this secession, preparing for the South to leave and then be reduced to begging for readmission. A legal team is assembled, working to establish a structure wherein South Carolina, upon departure, is simply left to her own devices, without bloodshed or perceptions of Union cowardice.

The other part of that, of course, is economic. Ensuring that Southern sharecroppers move into actual food production, able to support themselves when shipments of Iowan wheat dry up. Building textile rivals to cotton: sources from Egypt and India, promoting silk and linen and wool and even leather. In that, he is assisted by, or rather assists Emma Weed, trusted by her financier father Thurlow to manage the family's accounts.

Lewis must manage a quiet national conspiracy, finagle Southern blindness and Northern pride, to prevent the eruption of a bloody civil war. And the clock is ticking.