Chapter 566 - 266: Another Talk
Harrisburg, the Governor’s Mansion.
Bob Campbell hung up the phone. After a moment of silence, he stood up and walked over to a display case on the other side of the office.
Inside the case was a flintlock gun, its barrel rusted and its wooden stock stained black.
It was a weapon his ancestor had used in the Revolutionary War.
He was Pennsylvania old money.
For the Campbell Family, politics wasn’t about climbing the social ladder or cashing in power for yachts and mansions.
It was a duty.
A sense of duty stemming from the old aristocratic tradition of elite responsibility.
In his mind, Pennsylvania wasn’t just an administrative division. It was his family’s estate.
The mountains and rivers, the factories, and the citizens who lived on this land were all part of that estate.
The citizens were his tenants.
As the lord of the manor, he had a responsibility to look after them, a responsibility to ensure they were fed and clothed, and a responsibility to maintain order on his estate.
He could accept his tenants’ occasional clamor and even tolerate some of their more unreasonable demands.
But he would absolutely not tolerate outsiders—especially Washington—storming into his estate, bossing his tenants around, and threatening to burn his house down.
Campbell took an unlabeled bottle of whiskey from the liquor cabinet and poured himself a glass.
Unlike other politicians, he didn’t have to answer to major donors during an election.
Therefore, he could never be bought.
And for that very reason, his relationship with Washington had always been delicate.
The party leaders needed him to secure Pennsylvania, a swing state, but they were also vexed by his uncontrollable independence.
Campbell knew this. He knew he had always been a problem for them.
At the same time, however, he needed something from Washington.
He disliked handling administrative affairs in a place like Harrisburg and was tired of wrangling with short-sighted local legislators.
Compared to being a Governor managing an estate, at his core, he was more of a judge.
His true passion was the law—the grand narratives that define the order of a nation.
His ultimate goal was to be the Attorney General.
Joining the cabinet and heading the Department of Justice—that was the calling that aligned with his personal ideals.
But to get that position, he needed the White House’s approval and sufficient prestige within the party.
This created a paradox: he wanted to maintain his control at the local level, but he didn’t want to offend Washington and block his path to advancement.
This conflict between family duty and personal ambition had made the last few years very uncomfortable for him.
The threat from Marcus Crassus still rang in his ears.
Campbell’s mind raced, gaming out Washington’s possible methods of retaliation.
The most direct method would be to bypass him and prop up a more obedient proxy.
Aston Monroe was the obvious choice.
But Campbell wasn’t overly concerned.
Monroe was ambitious, but his foundations were still shallow.
As long as he remained Governor, Monroe wouldn’t dare make a reckless move.
’What about a more extreme scenario, then?’
’Would Washington make a direct move against him?’
Campbell shook his head.
’Impeachment? That would require the State Assembly’s cooperation, and my family still has influence there.’
’Fabricate a scandal? My family’s legal team is no joke.’
’As long as I don’t resign voluntarily or make a fatal mistake, it will be very difficult for Washington to force me out of this position.’
He decided to stand firm.
This decision to stand firm didn’t stem from a mere lust for power, but from a more complex, even painful, internal struggle.
Campbell leaned back in his chair, staring at the embossed carvings on the ceiling.
When he graduated from Yale Law School, he never imagined he would one day become Governor.
Back then, he was a public prosecutor, enamored with the logic of the law, captivated by the pursuit of absolute justice within statutes and evidence.
His dream was to become Attorney General, or even a Supreme Court Justice.
That was the battlefield meant for him, the place where his soul belonged.
But a family name is a curse.
The Campbell Family’s roots ran too deep in the soil of Pennsylvania.
His grandfather had been a governor, and his father a senator.
When the family elders placed that weighty campaign plan in front of him, he couldn’t refuse.
For the glory of his family, to perpetuate their absolute influence in the region, he sacrificed his own career path. He traded his prosecutor’s robes for a politician’s suit and jumped into the Harrisburg quagmire.
He became Governor.
He grew tired of cutting ribbons, tired of placating insatiably greedy Union leaders, and tired of wrangling with a dozen committees just to get a single road repaired.
So, when Washington extended an olive branch, hinting that the position of Attorney General in the next cabinet could be his if he behaved, he was tempted.
It was his only chance to return to his true calling.
For the sake of this opportunity, he had spent the last several years compromising with Washington.
He suppressed radical voices within the state, cooperated with White House policies, and did his best to play the part of a moderate, steady Democratic Governor who saw the bigger picture.
He thought he was accumulating political capital.
But now, that phone call from Washington was like a bucket of ice water, jolting him wide awake.
"Deploy the National Guard."
"Take over Pittsburgh."
Those commands held not a shred of respect—only the raw, undisguised act of being ordered around.
In the eyes of Washington’s power brokers, he, Bob Campbell, wasn’t some future Attorney General, nor was he an important ally.