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 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."

It must be kept in mind that this is not the only kind of local government known in the constitutional law and practice of the United

States. There is, and always has been, since the establishment of the federal system in 1789, for the larger part 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, partly under the exclusive government of Congress, and partly under the exclusive government of the President.

The Constitution of the United States recognizes and provides for all three of these species of local government, and vests in Congress the

power of advancing the population of a district, the confines of which district shall be determined by Congress itself, from the lower to the higher forms of local government. While the Constitution does not expressly impose upon Congress the duty of making or permitting the change from one kind of local government to another, it impliedly indicates that Congress shall determine the kind of local government which the population of any particular district shall enjoy in accordance with the conditions prevailing, at any given moment, among them. If the maintenance of law and order requires the immediate exercise of military power, Congress may, and should, permit the continuance of the President's discretionary government. If, on the other hand, this is not necessary, Congress may, and should, confer civil government, under the Territorial form, and when the population of a Territory shall have become ripe for local self-government and capable of maintaining it, Congress may, and should, allow the Territory to become a "State" of the Union, a Commonwealth.

Such being the nature of a "State" of the Union and such the method of its creation, what reason is there for speaking of the "States" in a

system of federal government as indestructible? As they emerge from the status of Territories under the exclusive power of Congress, upon having attained certain conditions, why may they not revert to the status of