Jean Louise,” he said dryly, “not much more than five per cent of the South’s population ever saw a slave, much less owned one. Now, something must have irritated the other ninety-five per cent.” Jean Louise looked blankly at her uncle. “Has it never occurred to you – have you never, somewhere along the line, received vibrations to the effect – that this territory was a separate nation? No matter what its political bonds, a nation with its own people, existing within a nation?