INT. HOUSE CHAMBER, THE CAPITOL - LATE MORNING

The chamber's noisy and packed. In the balcony's front row, a wall of newspapermen, notebooks at the ready.

TITLE: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

JANUARY 27

Ashley, Colfax, and Stevens approach Stevens's desk. Colfax nods towards the journalists in the balcony:

           SCHUYLER COLFAX

The World, the Herald and the Times, New York, Chicago, the Journal of Commerce, even your hometown paper's here.

           JAMES ASHLEY (TO STEVENS:)

Say you believe only in legal equality for all races, not racial equality, I beg you, sir.Compromise. Or you risk it all.

Stevens sees Mary, with Mrs. Keckley, claiming front seats from two journalists.