INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 RECONSTRUCTION AND THE CONSTITUTION {1} 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. [Sidenote: The conception of a "State" in a system of federal government.] 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 {2} government 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." [Sidenote: The different kinds of local government provided for in the Constitution of the United States.]