Were the Reconstruction Acts constitutional? Since the Supreme Court has failed, either voluntarily or otherwise, to decide every case brought before it depending upon this question,[73] reasoning is not rendered idle by authority. The Supreme Court has indeed expressed a definite opinion on the subject, but has given no decision. The opinion referred to was expressed in the case of Texas _versus_ White.[74] The Court said: These new relations [namely, those created by the civil war] imposed new duties upon the United States. The first was that of suppressing the rebellion. The next was that of re-establishing the broken relations of the states with the Union. The authority for the performance of the first had been found in the power to suppress insurrection and to carry on war; for the performance of the second, authority was derived from the obligation of the United States to guarantee to every state a republican form of government. This the Court considered good authority for the passage of the Reconstruction Acts. Most of the advocates of the acts based them upon this theory. Now, upon that clause of Article IV., Section 4, of the Constitution which says: "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government," the _Federalist_ remarks: It may possibly be asked whether [this clause] may not become a pretext for alterations in the state governments without the concurrence of the states themselves.... But the authority extends no further than to a _guarantee_ [the _Federalist's_ italics] of a republican form of government, which supposes a pre-existing government of the form which is to be guaranteed.[75] The intention of the clause, says the _Federalist_ in the same paper, is simply to guard "against aristocratic or monarchic innovations." To one not interested in establishing the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts, it seems indisputable that the clause is rightly interpreted by the _Federalist_. Story accepts this interpretation as a matter of course.[76] Cooley groups the clause with that which forbids the states to grant titles of nobility.[77] If this interpretation is correct, then the guarantee clause gives no authority for destroying a state government of a republican form and substituting another. There is, however, a constitutional basis for the Reconstruction Acts. It is the war power of Congress.