The question which gave rise to this Conference and to a book I am writing, is how we should think the constitution of the Federation, that is to say, the specific political entity that is, at least in our view, neither a State nor an Empire. Thus formulated, the question seems purposeless, indeed absurd, in the light of the great mass of jurisprudence that bases its reasoning on the architectonic distinction between the Federal State and the Confederation of States or Confederacy. The jurisprudence repeatedly lays down that the constitution organises the Federal State whereas the treaty is the legal basis for the Confederacy. Thus, the reigning opinion sees no problem in the constitution of a Federation since the federal constitution is the legal basis of the Federal State in the same way as a unitary constitution is the basis for a unitary State.