The article had focused on how conservative the bank of Grantville was. It read like a complaint, but in truth, the article was a sales pitch for uptimer money. It was a good sales pitch, and very persuasive. Birdie was persuaded that Claus Junker just might have fooled himself by insisting on getting the rent in down-time currency. The thought made a good start to the day.
Relations with his down-time landlord had not started well and they had gone downhill ever since. Claus didn't like most of Birdie's improvements and didn't like the influence Birdie was gaining with the other tenants. Birdie didn't like the way Claus treated some tenants better than he treated others. Claus seemed to prefer the tenants that were good at sucking up. Their relations were particularly headed downhill since Birdie had learned that Herr Junker was giving the other new renters, down-timers only, a break on the rent.
Oddly enough, elections were just finished and were still coming up. The elections for delegates to the constitutional convention had ended and the Fourth of July Party had won. The convention was in the process of editing the Fourth of July Party's platform into an actual Constitution. Most of the editing was just so the convention could say that they had actually had a hand in writing the Constitution. Meanwhile, elections for the first Congress and President had already been scheduled.
"This means that we can vote in the next election?" Greta asked Ernst. Ernst was a bit unsure and looked to Birdie for an answer.
"Don't know." Birdie shook his head. "If people have lived inside the Ring of Fire for three months they just have to register; then they can vote. Sundremda ain't inside the Ring of Fire, though."
It was a Saturday afternoon and they were gathered in Ernst's new house. This house was similar to his previous home but still different. This house didn't have indoor plumbing but it was designed to accommodate it. Before the indoor plumbing could be added, Ernst would need to install a septic tank and leach field.
The delay of the installation was partly a matter of expense and partly a matter of timing. He was waiting till spring when the ground thawed. The plumbing still needed to be installed before planting, but he needed to see if they had enough money to install it. This left the house with a bathroom but no bathtub or toilet. At the moment, there was just a covered hole in the floor that had a buried clay pipe leading outside. Birdie and Ernst had also worked out how electricity would be added when it became available.
All this gave the house an odd, half-finished look. That half-finished look was common to the new buildings in Sundremda.
"I have been following the election discussions. This is an important right. To vote is also a responsibility of proper citizens. We should vote," Greta insisted pedantically. Greta could do pedantic better than just about anyone Birdie knew.
Birdie looked at Greta for a moment. He knew that the outcome of this election was pretty much a forgone conclusion. On the other hand, Greta was right. Voting was even more important now than it had been uptime.
"Yes. Yes, it is, but I don't know how we'd go about it." Birdie had sort of fallen into the role of village leader. Partly it was because he was an uptimer and partly because he owned his own land even if he rented land in the village.
"Well, don't you think we ought to find out?" Mary Lee asked, utterly unimpressed by Birdie's newfound status.
"We have discussed this in the village. We all agreed that we wish to be citizens of the New United States. We approve of the Bill of Rights," Greta concluded with certainty.
Liz Carstairs looked at the petition with a sort of bemused incomprehension. The first line read, "A petition to be annexed by Marion County, New United States." The document went on to give the reasoning behind the request. Sundremda wasn't an independent town but rather a village that was part of a county that no longer existed. Since the death of count Gleichen, who died without heirs, his county had ceased to exist. Legal authority over the territory had gone back to Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor. Actual ownership of the land was, in this case, a function of legal authority over it. If Ferdinand II continued as the government then he owned the land. If he didn't, then who ever was the government owned the land. In effect the village of Sundremda was public land with a permanent Lehen on it.
Ferdinand II's claim was impractical since Ferdinand II didn't actually control this part of the Germanies. Accepting the emperor's authority wouldn't really be in the best interests of the New U.S., either. For the emperor to own land butting up against the Ring of Fire was a bad idea. The document also pointed out that six of the signers were already citizens of Marion County. Even though the signers didn't actually live in Sundremda, they were still legal renters since they were members of Birdie's family.