RECONSTRUCTION CHAPTER I THE THEORY OF RECONSTRUCTION The Conception of a "State" in a System of Federal Government -The Different Kinds of Local Government Provided for in the Constitution of the United States-Local Government Under the Constitution of the United States-"State" Destructibility in the Federal System of Government-The Effect on "State"Existence of the Renunciation of Allegiance to the Union-The Idea of "State" Perdurance-The Constitutional Results of Attempted Secession. The con State" in a system of fedment. govern THE key to the solution of the question of Reconstruction is the proper conception of what a "State" is in a system of federal government. This is a conception which is not easy to acquire, and which, when acquired, is not easy to hold. The difficulty lies, chiefly, in the tendency to confound the idea of a "State" in such a system with a state pure and simple. Until the distinction between the two is clearly seen and firmly applied, no real progress can be made in the theory and practice of the federal system of government. Now the fundamental principle of a state pure and simple is sovereignty, the original, innate, and legally unlimited power to command and enforce obedience by the infliction of penalties for disobedience. On the other hand, the nature of a "State" in a system of federal gov 1 ernment is a very different thing. Such a "State" is a local self-government, under the supremacy of the general constitution, and possessed of residuary powers. In the federal system of the United States, it is a local self-government, under the supremacy of the Constitution of the United States, and of the laws and treaties of the central Government made in accordance with that Constitution, republican as to form, and possessed of residuary powers—that is, of all powers not vested by the Constitution of the United States exclusively in the central Government, or not denied by that Constitution to the "State." local govern ed for in the of the United States. It must be kept in mind that this is not the only kind of local government known in the constitutional law and The differ- practice of the United States. There is, and ent kind of always has been, since the establishment of ment provid- the federal system in 1789, for the larger part Constitution of the population which declared united independence of Great Britain in 1776, another kind of local government for a part of the United States, a local government which is not self-government, a local government which is but an agency of the central Government. In fact, there have been at times three kinds of local government in the political system of the United States, viz., local government by the executive department of the central Government-that is, local government by executive discretion, martial law-local government as an agency of the legislative department of the central Government-that is, Territorial government-and "State" government. That is to say, since 1789 the whole of the United States, territorially, has never been under the federal system of government, but has always been partly under federal government and partly under the exclusive government of Congress, and has sometimes been partly under federal government, |