Neither is there any reason for holding that the old "State" organization perdures as an abstract something under the forms of

Congressional or Presidential rule, and will emerge of itself when these are withdrawn. If the "State" form of local government should be established again over that same district and over the population inhabiting it, it would be an entirely new creation, even though it should recognize the forms and laws and obligations of the old "State." It must be, however, remembered that both the executive and judicial

departments of the United States Government committed themselves fully to this theory of "State" perdurance as an abstract something unaffected by the loss of the conditions of the "State" form of local government through the rebellion of the "State" organization against the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that Congress did the same thing, at first, in some degree. It was this error which caused all of the confusion in the ideas and processes of Reconstruction, and we ought, therefore, to rid ourselves of it at the start, at the same time that we recognize its influence over the minds of those who engaged in the difficult work of the years between 1865 and 1876.

From the view which we take of the nature of a "State" in a system of federal government, and its possible destructibility, there is not much

difficulty in determining the constitutional results of an attempt upon the part of such a "State" to break away from its connections in that system. What it does, stripped of all misconception and verbiage, is simply this: it forcibly resists the execution of the whole supreme law of the land, and destroys the prime condition of its own existence by making it necessary for the central Government to assert exclusive power in the district where this happens. Naturally the executive department of the central Government must act first, and subdue by force the force which has been offered against the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the United States. After that shall have been accomplished, the question as to how the population in the rebellious district shall be civilly organized anew, is one for the legislative department of the central Government exclusively. Congress may fashion the boundaries of the district at its own pleasure, and may establish therein such a Territorial organization of civil local government as it may see fit, and is limited in what it may do in this respect only by the constitutional immunities of the individual subject or citizen under every form of civil government provided or allowed by the Constitution of the United States. Congress may also enable the existing population of such a district, or such part of that population as it may designate, to organize the "State" form of local government, and may grant it participation in the powers of the central Government upon an equality with the other "States" in the federal system. These things are matters in which the President, as the executive power, cannot interfere. As participant in legislation, however, he may, at his own discretion, use his powers of recommendation and veto.

If rebellion against the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the United States should not be committed by an existing "State" organization, but by a new organization claiming to be the "State" organization within the district concerned, the existing organization remaining loyal, but requiring the aid of the central Government to maintain its authority, then the withdrawal of that aid by the President after the accomplishment of its purpose would, of course, leave the old "State" organization with restored authority, and Congress would have no function to perform in the re-establishment of civil government in such a district, or in the readmission of its population to participation in the central Government. This was the course followed in Missouri and Kentucky, and it was the course, which, at first, was attempted in the case of Virginia. In the first two cases it was entirely correct. In the last it had to be abandoned, for reasons, and on account of conditions, which will be explained later.

What we have, therefore, in the theory and history of Reconstruction is the case of existing "State" organizations forcibly resisting the execution of the supreme law of the land, and stricken down by the executive power of the central Government in the attempt, that power being exercised at its own motion and in its own way.