human
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
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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 {6} 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
human
State form of local government, and may grant it participation in the powers of the central Government upon an equality with the other
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States