Chapter 6

“And upon this act, sincerely believed to bean act of justice warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”

But the argument for Enfranchisement, which is nothing but the complement of Emancipation, is the same. Enfranchisement is not only intrinsically just, but necessary to the safety of the Republic. There is no reason, point, or argument once urged for Emancipation which may not be urged now for Enfranchisement. I do not err, when I say that Emancipation itself will fail without Enfranchisement.

By Enfranchisement I mean the establishment of theEqual Rights of All, so that there shall be no exclusion of any kind, civil or political, founded on color, and the promises of the Fathers shall be fulfilled. Such a measure will be, in the words of President Lincoln, “an act of justice warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity.”

As an act of justice, Enfranchisement has a necessity of its own. No individual and no people can afford to be unjust. Such an offence carries a curse, which, sooner or later, must drag its perpetrator to ruin. But here necessity from considerations of justice is completed and intensified by positive requirements of the national safety, plainly involved in the performance of these promises.

Look at the unhappy freedman blasted by the ban of exclusion. He has always been loyal, and now it is he, and not the Rebel master, who pays the penalty. From the nature of the case, he must be discontented, restless, anxious, smarting with sense of wrong and consciousness of rights denied. He does not work as if taken by the hand and made to feel the grasp of friendship. He is idle, thriftless, unproductive. Industry suffers. Cotton does not grow. Commerce does not thrive. Credit fails; nay, it dies before it is born. On the other hand, his Rebel master, with hands still red with the blood of fellow-countrymen, is encouraged in that assumption of superiority which is part of the Barbarism of Slavery; he dominates as in times past; he is exacting as of old; he is harsh, cruel, and vindictive; he makes the unprotected and trembling freedman suffer for the losses and disappointments of the Rebellion; he continues to insult and prostitute the wife and children, who, ceasing to be chattels, havenot ceased to be dependants; he follows the freedman to by-ways and obscure places, where once again he plays master and asserts his ancient title as lord of the lash. Scenes of savage brutality and blood ensue. All this, which reason foretells, the short experience of a few months already confirms. And all this you sanction, when you leave the freedman despoiled of his rights.

But the freedman, though forbearing and slow to anger, will not always submit to outrage. He will resist. Resistance will be organized. And here begins the terrible war of races foreseen by Jefferson, where God, in all His attributes, has none which can take part with the oppressor. The tragedy of San Domingo will be renewed on a wider theatre, with bloodier incidents. Be warned, I entreat you, by this historic example. It was the denial of rights to colored people, upon successive promises, which caused that fearful insurrection. After various vicissitudes, during which the rights of citizenship were conferred on free people of color and then resumed, the slaves at last rose; and here the soul sickens at the recital. Then came Toussaint l’Ouverture, a black of unmixed blood, who placed himself at the head of his race, showing the genius of war, and the genius of statesmanship also. Under his magnanimous rule the beautiful island began to smile once more: agriculture revived; commerce took a new start; the whites were protected in person and property; and a Constitution was adopted acknowledging the authority of France, but making no distinction of race or color. In an evil hour this policy was reversed by a decree of Napoleon Bonaparte. War revived, and the French army was compelled to succumb. The connection of San Domingo with Francewas broken, and this island became a black republic. All this dreary catalogue of murder, battle, sorrow, and woe began in denial of justice to the colored race. And only recently we have listened to a similar tragedy from Jamaica, thus swelling the terrible testimony. Like causes produce like effects; therefore all this will be ours, if we madly persist in the same denial. The freedmen among us are not unlike the freedmen of San Domingo or Jamaica; they have the same “organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions,” and, above all, the same sense of wrong, and the same revenge.

To avoid insurrection and servile war, big with measureless calamity, and even to obtain the security essential to industry, agriculture, commerce, and the national credit, you must perform the promises of the Republic, originally made by our fathers, and recently renewed by ourselves. But duty done will not only save you from calamity and give you security; it will also prepare the way for the great triumphs of the future, when through assured peace there shall be tranquillity, prosperity, and reconciliation, all of which it is vain to expect without justice.

The freedman must be protected. To this you are solemnly pledged by the Proclamation of President Lincoln, which, after declaring him “free,” promises tomaintainthis freedom, not for any limited period, but for all time. But this cannot be, so long as you deny him the shield ofimpartial laws. Let him be heard in court, and let him vote. Let these rights be guarded sacredly. Beyond even the shield ofimpartial laws, he will then have the protection which comes from the consciousness of manhood. Clad in the full panoply of citizenship, he will feel at last that he is a man.At present he is only a recent chattel, awaiting your justice to be transmuted into manhood. Would you have him respected in his rights, you must begin by respecting him in your laws. Would you maintain him in freedom, you must begin by maintaining him in the equal rights of citizenship.

And now the national safety is staked on this act of justice. You cannot sacrifice the freedman without endangering the peace of the country and the stability of our institutions. Everything will be kept in jeopardy. The national credit will suffer. Business of all kinds will feel the insecurity. The whole land will gape with volcanic fire, ready to burst forth in fatal flood. The irrepressible conflict will be prolonged. The house will continue divided against itself. From all these things, Good Lord, deliver us! But, under God, there is but one deliverance, and this is through justice.

I have said that the national credit will suffer; but this does not disclose the whole financial calamity. It is idle to suppose that recent rebels, restored to privileges of citizenship, will vote cordially for the national debt incurred in the suppression of their rebellion, or that they will willingly tax themselves for interest on the enormous outlays by which their darling Slavery has been overthrown. The evidence shows them already set against any such contribution. As time advances, and their power is assured, in conjunction with Northern sympathizers, they will openly oppose it; or, if they consent to recognize it, they will impose the condition that the Rebel debt shall be recognized also. All this is inevitable, if you give them the power; it is madness to tempt them. But they will not have the power, if the promises to thefreedman are performed. Here again justice to the freedman becomes a necessity.

Sometimes it is said that we must not require justice to the freedman, because justice is still denied to the colored citizen in Connecticut and New York. Idle words, of inconceivable utterance! as if the two cases bore any imaginable resemblance! There are rivers in the North and rivers in the South, but who says that on this account the two regions are alike? The denial of justice to the colored citizens in Connecticut and New York is wrong and mean; but it is on so small a scale that it is not perilous to the Republic, nor is it vital to the protection of the colored citizen and the protection of the national creditor. You are moved to Enfranchisement in Connecticut and New York for justice to a few individuals only; but you are moved to it in the Rebel States for justice to multitudes, also to save the Republic, imperilled by injustice on a gigantic scale, and to supply needful protection to the national freedman and the national creditor. From failure on our part, there is in one case little more than shame, while in the other there is positive danger, involving the fate of the national freedman and the national creditor, to whom we are bound by the most solemn ties. To a good man, injustice, even on a small scale, is not tolerable; he feels the necessity of resisting it; but where the victims are counted by millions, this necessity becomes a transcendent duty, quickened and invigorated by all the instincts of self-preservation. Therefore, I say again, for the national safety, redeem these promises of the Fathers, and your own.

It is sometimes asserted that the National Constitution expressly reserves to the States the power ofdetermining who shall vote, because it declares that “the electors in each State shall have thequalificationsrequisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.” But this assumption proceeds on the fatal error, that, at any time under the Constitution, which makes no distinction of color, there can be any such oligarchical distinction as a “qualification” founded on color. Even assuming that in a period of peace this might be done, yet, beyond all doubt, at the present moment, from the necessity of the case, from the Rights of War, from the Constitutional clause of guaranty, and from the Constitutional Amendment, Congress, by its quadruple powers, is completely authorized to do all it thinks best for the national security and the national faith in the Rebel States. As well question Farragut in the maintop of his steamer, Sherman in his march across Georgia, or Grant in the field before Richmond, as question the authority of Congress in the present crisis. But, if the authority exists, it must be exercised.

And this brings me to the next form of this necessity and duty, as they appear in the guaranty clause of the Constitution. It is expressly declared that “the United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government.” These words, when properly understood, leave no alternative. They speak to us with no uncertain voice. But they must be understood. The Rebel States, while providing constitutional safeguards for property in man, and, accordingto the vaunt of their Vice-President, making Slavery the corner-stone of the new Government, yet follow our Constitution in the formal guaranty of a republican form of government.[46]Defiantly they assume that Slavery is not inconsistent with such a government. To this degrading assumption we must reply, not only for the national cause, but that republican governments may not suffer.

The magnitude of the question before us is seen in the postulate with which I begin. Assuming that there has been a lapse of government in any State, so as to impose upon the United States the duty of executing this guaranty, then do I insist that it is a bounden duty to see that such State has a “republican form of government,” and, in the discharge of this bounden duty, we must declare that a State, which, in the foundation of its government, sets aside “the consent of the governed,” which imposes taxation without representation, which discards the principle of Equal Rights, and lodges power exclusively with an Oligarchy, Aristocracy, Caste, or Monopoly, cannot be recognized as a “republican form of government,” according to the requirement of American institutions. Even if it may satisfy some definition handed down from antiquity or invented in monarchical Europe, it cannot satisfy the solemn injunction of our Constitution. For this question I now ask a hearing. Nothing in the present debate can equal it in importance. Its correct determination will be an epoch for our country and for mankind.

Believe me, Sir, this is no question of theory or abstraction. It is a practical question, which you are summoned to decide. Here is the positive text of the Constitution, and you must affix its meaning. You cannot evade it, you cannot forget it, without abandonment of duty. Others in vision or aspiration have dwelt on the idea of a Republic, and they have been lifted in soul. You must consider it not merely in vision or aspiration, but practically, as legislators, seeking a precise definition, to the end that the constitutional “guaranty” may be performed. Your powers and duties are involved in this definition. The character of the Government founded by our fathers is also involved in it.

There is another consideration not to be forgotten. In affixing the proper meaning to the text, and determining what is a “republican form of government,” you act as a court in the last resort, from which there is no appeal. You are sole and exclusive judges. You may decide as you please. Rarely in history has such an opportunity been offered to the statesman. You may raise the name of Republic to majestic heights of justice and truth, or you may let it drag low down in the depths of wrong and falsehood. You may make it fulfil the idea of John Milton, when he said that “a commonwealth ought to be but as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth and stature of an honest man, as big and compact in virtue as in body”;[47]or you may let it shrink into the ignoble form of a pretender, with the name of Republic, but without its soul.

Before considering this vital question, it is proper to regard the origin of this “guaranty,” and see how it obtained place in the Constitution. Perhaps there was no clause more cordially welcomed; nor does it appear that it was subjected to any serious criticism in the National Convention or in any State Convention. It is not found in the Articles of Confederation; but we learn from the “Federalist”[48]that the want of this provision was felt as a capital defect in the plan of the Confederation. Mr. Madison, in a private record, made in advance of the National Convention, and which has only recently seen the light, enumerates among defects of the Confederation what he calls “want of guaranty to the States of their Constitutions and lawsagainst internal violence”; and he then proceeds to anticipate danger from Slavery, which could be counteracted only by such “guaranty.” Showing why this was needed, he says, that, “according torepublican theory, right and power, being both vested in the majority, are held to be synonymous; according to fact and experience, a minority may, in an appeal to force, be an overmatch for the majority”; and he remarks, in words which furnish a key to the “guaranty” afterwards adopted, “Where Slavery exists, therepublican theorybecomes still more fallacious,”—thus showing, that, at its very origin, it was regarded as a check upon Slavery.[49]

Hamilton was not less positive than Madison. In his sketch of a Constitution, communicated to Madison, and preserved by him,[50]this “guaranty” is found; and in the elaborate brief of his argument on the Constitution,it is specified as one of its “miscellaneous advantages.” The last words of this remarkable paper are “guaranty of republican governments.”[51]Randolph, of Virginia, in his sketch of a Constitution, proposed the “guaranty,” and, in a speech setting forth the evils of the old system, he said of the remedy, that “the basis must be therepublican principle.”[52]Colonel Mason, of Virginia, taking up the same strain, said, that, though the people might be unsettled on some points, they were settled as to others, among which he put foremost “an attachment torepublican government.”[53]

The proposition in its earliest form was, “that a republican government, and the territory of each State, except in the instance of a voluntary junction of government and territory, ought to be guarantied by the United States to each State.”[54]This was afterward altered so as to read, “that a republican Constitution and its existing laws ought to be guarantied to each State by the United States.” Gouverneur Morris thought that the proposition in this form was “very objectionable,” and he added, that “he should be very unwilling that such laws as exist in Rhode Island should be guarantied.” On discussion, it was amended, at the motion of Mr. Wilson, the learned and philosophical delegate from Pennsylvania, afterward of the Supreme Court of the United States, so as to read, “thata republican form of governmentshall be guarantied to each State, and that each State shall be protected against foreign and domestic violence,” and in this form it wasunanimously adopted.[55]Afterward it underwent modification in the Convention and in the Committees of Detail and Revision, until it received the final form it now has in the Constitution:[56]—

“The United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and, on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive, when the Legislature cannot be convened, against domestic violence.”

Thus stands the “guaranty.” If further reason be required for its introduction into the Constitution, it will be found in the prophetic language of the “Federalist”:—

“It may possibly be asked, what need there could be of such a precaution, and whether it may not become a pretext for alterations in the State governments without the concurrence of the States themselves. These questions admit of ready answers. If the interposition of the General Government should not be needed, the provision for such an event will be a harmless superfluity only in the Constitution.But who can say what experiments may be produced by the caprice of particular States, by the ambition of enterprising leaders, or by the intrigues and influence of foreign powers?”[57]

The very crisis anticipated has arrived. “The caprice of particular States,” and “the ambition of enterprising leaders” have done their worst. And now the “guaranty” must be performed, not only for the sake of individual States, but for the sake of the Union to whichthey all belong, and to advance the declared objects of the Constitution, specified in its preamble.

The text of this great contract is worthy of study. No stronger or more comprehensive words could be employed, whether we regard the object, the party guarantying, or the party guarantied. The express object is “a republican form of government.” This is plain. The party guarantying is not merely the Executive or some specified branch of the National Government, but “the United States,” or, in other words, the Nation. The Republic, which is the impersonation of all, guaranties “a republican form of government”; and every branch of the National Government must sustain the guaranty, including especially Congress, where is the collected will of the people. The obligation is not less broad, when we consider the party guarantied. Here there can be no evasion. The guaranty is not merely for the advantage of individual States, but for the common defence and the general welfare. It is a guaranty to each in the interest of all, and therefore a guaranty to all. And such is the solidarity of States in the Union, that the good of all is involved in the good of each. For each and all, then, this guaranty must be performed, when thecasus fœderisarrives. As guarantor, the Republic, according to a familiar principle, is to act on default of the party guarantied; and then the duty is fixed in all its amplitude.

The testimony is complete. This clause was no hasty or accidental amendment, creeping into the Constitution by stealth or compromise, obscure in language and open to various interpretation, but a solemn act, couched in few, lucid, unmistakable words; and its precise purpose was just what so plainly appears,—tokeep all the States truly “republican,” and make the whole numerous people, in the development of the future, homogeneous and one. By these words the Nation is not only empowered, but commanded, to perform the great guaranty. Power and duty here concur. Mr. Webster was right, when he called this provision “a very stringent article, drawing after it the most important consequences, and all of them good consequences.”[58]

The question, then, returns, What is “a republican form of government,” according to the requirement of the National Constitution? Mark, if you please, that it is not the meaning of this term according to Plato and Cicero, not even according to examples of history, nor according to definitions of monarchical writers or lexicographers,—but what is “a republican form of government” according to the requirements of the National Constitution? Of course these important words were not introduced and unanimously adopted without purpose. They must be interpreted so as to have real meaning. Any interpretation rendering them insignificant must be discarded as irrational and valueless, if not dishonest. They cannot be treated as a phrase only, nor a dead letter, nor an empty figure-head. Nor can they be treated as profession and nothing more, so that the Constitution shall merelyseemto be republican, reversing the old injunction, “To be rather than to seem,”—Esse quam videri. They must be treated as real. Thus interpreted, they become at once a support of Human Rights and a balance-wheel to our whole political system.

In determining their signification, I begin by putting aside what is vague, unsatisfactory, and inapplicable, in order to bring the inquiry directly to American institutions.

I put aside all illustration derived from the speculations of ancient philosophers, because, on careful examination, it appears that the term “Republic,” as used by them, was so absolutely different from any idea among us as to exclude their definition from the debate. This captivating term is of Roman origin. It is the same as “commonwealth,” and means the public interest. As originally employed, it was not a specific term, describing a particular form of government, but a general term, embracing all governments, whether kingly, aristocratic, democratic, or mixed. Its equivalent in Greece was “polity,” being the general term for all governments. Therefore the definition of a Republic, according to these ancients, is simply the definition of an organized government, whether kingly, aristocratic, democratic, or mixed. Following this definition, the words of the Constitution are only the guaranty of an organized government, without determining its character. This, of course, leaves open the very question under consideration.

While the ancient nomenclature cannot be cited in determining the definition of a Republic, we may be encouraged by it in demanding that all government, whatever name it bears, shall be designed to establish justice and secure the general welfare. Thus, Plato, who commenced these interesting speculations, likens government to a just man, delighting in justice always, however treated by others; and the philosopher insists that every man is a government to himself as everycommunity is a government to itself. His ideal commonwealth appears in a good man, and this analogy testifies to the government he conceived. Aristotle, in a different vein, and with more precision, opens by declaring that “every state is a certain community” or “partnership.”[59]This idea appears again when he says, “Nothing more characterizes a complete citizen thanhaving a sharein the judicial and executive part of the government.”[60]In various places he speaks of “the common good” as a special object,—as, “when the One, the Few, or the Many govern for the common good, theirs must be called a good government”[61]; and he defines a democracy as “where the freemen and the poor, being the majority, are masters of the government.”[62]The same ideas find new fervor and expansion, when Cicero says, “A republic is the interest of the people. But by the people I do not mean every assemblage of men, gathered together anyhow, but a body of men associated through agreement in right and community of interest.”[63]And then again, in another place, the Roman philosopher says, “Only in a state where the power of the people is supreme has Liberty any abode, and,where not equal, it is not really Liberty.”[64]But all these requirements or aspirations are applicable to any government, of whatever form; and it is well known that Cicero recorded his preference for a government tempered by admixture of the three different kinds; so that we are not advanced in our definition, unless we insist that our Republic should have all the virtues accorded to the ideal commonwealth.And yet there are two principles which all these philosophers teach: the first is justice; and the second is the duty of seeking the general welfare.

I next put aside the examples of history, as absolutely fallacious and inapplicable. In all ages, governments have been called Republics. Tacitus speaks of Rome under the tyranny of the Empire as the Republic; and Marcus Aurelius, while Emperor, pledges himself to the Republic. Indeed, there is hardly a government, from that of the great hunter Nimrod down to insulted and partitioned Poland, which has not been called Republic. In 1773, only a few years before the adoption of the National Constitution, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, after dividing Poland, undertook to establish fundamental laws for this conquered country, where was this declaration:—

“The government of Poland shall be forever free, independent,and of a republican form: the true principle of said government consisting in the strict execution of its laws, and the equilibrium of the three estates, namely, the king, the senate, and the equestrian order.”[65]

But a government thus composed cannot be recognized in this debate as “of a republican form.”

At the adoption of the Constitution, the most competent persons, who disagreed on other things, agreed in discarding these examples. Alexander Hamilton and John Adams met here on common ground. The former, in the Brief of his Argument, exhibits the various forms of government to which the term “Republic” has been applied.

“A Republic, a word used in various senses. Has been applied to aristocracies and monarchies. (1.) To Rome under the Kings. (2.) To Sparta, though a Senate for life. (3.) To Carthage, though the same. (4.) To United Netherlands, though Stadtholder, hereditary nobles. (5.) To Poland, though aristocracy and monarchy. (6.) To Great Britain, though monarchy, &c.”[66]

John Adams, in his Defence of the American Constitutions, written immediately anterior to the National Constitution, concurs with Hamilton.

“But, of all the words in all languages, perhaps there has been none so much abused in this way as the wordsRepublic, Commonwealth, and Popular State. In theRerum-Publicarum Collectio, of which there are fifty and odd volumes, and many of them very incorrect, France, Spain, and Portugal, the four great Empires, the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman, and even the Ottoman, are all denominated Republics.”[67]

In his old age the patriarch expressed himself in the same sense, and with equal force.

“The customary meanings of the wordsRepublicandCommonwealthhave been infinite. They have been applied to every government under heaven: that of Turkey, and that of Spain, as well as that of Athens and of Rome, of Geneva and San Marino.”[68]

And then again he said:—

“In some writing or other of mine, I happened,currente calamo, to drop the phrase, ‘The wordRepublic, as it is used, may signify anything, everything, or nothing.’ For thisescape I have been pelted, for twenty or thirty years, with as many stones as ever were thrown at St. Stephen, when St. Paul held the clothes of the stoners. But the aphorism is literal, strict, solemn truth. To speak technically, or scientifically, if you will, there are monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical republics. The government of Great Britain and that of Poland are as strictly republics as that of Rhode Island or Connecticut under their old charters.”[69]

In the latter remark, Mr. Adams simply repeats his treatise, where he calls England and Poland “monarchical or regalrepublics.”[70]

It is plain that our fathers, when they adopted the “guaranty” of “a republican form of government,” intended something certain, or which, if not certain on the face, could be made certain. But this excludes the authority of incongruous and inconsistent examples. They did not use words to signify “anything, everything, or nothing”; nor did they use words which were as applicable to England and Poland as to the United States. Therefore I cannot err in putting aside examples which, however they illustrate republican government in times past, are utterly out of place as a guide to the interpretation of the National Constitution. Something better must be found: nor is it wanting.

I put aside, also, definitions of European writers and lexicographers anterior to the National Constitution; for all these have the vagueness and uncertainty of political truth at that time in Europe. Among these, none is of higher authority than Montesquieu, who brought to political science study, genius, and a liberal spirit. But even this great writer, who profited by all hispredecessors, quickens and elevates without furnishing a satisfactory guide. He taught that “Virtue” was the inspiring principle of a republic, and by “virtue” he means the love of country, which, he says, is the love of equality.[71]This is beautiful, and makes Equality a foremost principle; but, with curious inconsistency, he includes “democracy” and “aristocracy” under the term “Republic,”—the former being where the people in mass have the sovereign power, and the latter “where the sovereign power is in the hands ofpart of the people.” When defining “democracy,” he expresses the importance of the suffrage as a fundamental of government, saying, among other things, that it is as important to regulateby whomthe suffrage shall be given as in a monarchy to know who is the monarch.[72]But among all these glimpses of truth there is no definition of “a republican form of government” which can help us in interpreting the National Constitution. Surely an aristocracy, “where the sovereign power is in the hands ofpart of the people,” cannot find a just place in our political system. It may be “a republican form of government” according to Montesquieu, but it cannot be according to American institutions.

One of the ablest among the modern predecessors of Montesquieu was John Bodin, also a Frenchman, who wrote nearly two centuries earlier. Like the ancient writers, he uses the term “republic” to embrace monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, which he calls “three kinds of republics,”—tria rerumpublicarum genera. If the republic is in the power of one,penes unum, it is a monarchy; if in the power of a few,penes paucos, itis an aristocracy; if in the power of all,penes universos, it is a democracy. Proceeding further, he says that a democracy is “where all or the major part of all the citizens,omnes aut major pars omnium civium, collected together, have the supreme power.”[73]Here the philosopher plainly follows the rule of jurisprudence in regard to corporations; but this definition seems to sanction the exclusion of part of the citizens, less than a majority, while it is inadequate in other respects. It says nothing of equality of rights, or of that great touchstone of the republican idea, the dependence of taxation upon representation.

But in his day the word was general, and not specific, as appears in other instances. The easy-going and very natural Brantôme, a contemporary of Bodin, quotes a book of his day which in its title speaks of “the Republic of France.”[74]This was while the most unrepublican house of Valois ruled. The great Chancellor l’Hospital uses the word in the same sense, when in his famous testament he speaks of yielding to “the necessity of the Republic.”[75]We have also the authority of Henri Martin, in his admirable History of France, who says that the word in Bodin “means only the State in its broad signification.”[76]Plainly, from writers of this period there is little help in the present inquiry.

There are later definitions to be put aside also. Thus, for instance, it is often said that a republic is “a governmentof laws, and not of men”; and this saying found favor with some among our fathers.[77]Long before, Aristotle had declared that such a government would be the kingdom of God.[78]But this condition, though marking an advanced degree of civilization, and of course essential to a republic, cannot be recognized as decisive. On its face it is vague from comprehensiveness. It is enough to say that it would embrace England, whose government our fathers renounced in order to build a republic. And still further, it would throw its shield over a government which “frameth mischief by a law.” This will not do.

There is also a plausible definition by Millar, the learned author of the work on the British Constitution, who states, hypothetically, that by Republic may be meant “a government in which there is no king or hereditary chief magistrate.”[79]But this, again, must be rejected, as leaving aristocracies and oligarchies in the category of republics.

Sometimes we hear that a government with an elective chief magistrate is a republic. Here, again, nothing is said of aristocracy or oligarchy, which coexist with an elective chief magistrate,—as in Venice, where the elected Doge was surrounded by an oligarchy of nobles, and in Holland, where the elected Stadtholder was a prince surrounded by princes. But there are other instances which make this definition unsatisfactory, if not absurd. The Pope of Rome is an elective chief magistrate; so also is the Grand Lama; but surely the States of the Church are not republican, nor is Thibet.

Rejecting the definition founded on the elective character of the chief magistrate, we must also reject another, founded on “the sovereignty of more than one man.” It has been said positively, by an eminent person who has written much on the subject, that “the strict definition of a republic is that in which the sovereignty resides in more than one man.”[80]But this strict definition embraces aristocracies and oligarchies.

I conclude these rejected specimens with that of Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary, which appeared before American Independence:—

“Republic.(1.) Commonwealth; state in which the power is lodged in more than one. (2.) Common interest; the public.”

These definitions are all as little to the purpose as the “vulgar error,” chronicled by Sir Thomas Browne, “that storks are to be found and will only live in republics,”[81]—or the saying of Rousseau, at a later day, that, “were there a nation of gods, it would govern itself democratically,”[82]—or the remark of John Adams, that “all good government is republican.”[83]It is evident that we must turn elsewhere for the illumination we need. If others thus far have failed, it is because they have looked across the sea instead of at home, and have searched foreign history and example instead of simply recognizing the history and example of their own country. They have imported inapplicable and uncertain definitions, forgetting that the Fathers, by positiveconduct, by solemn utterances, by declared opinions, and by public acts, all in harmony and constituting one overwhelming testimony, exhibited their idea of a republican government in a way at once applicable and certain. They are the natural interpreters of their own Constitution. Mr. Fox, the eminent English statesman, exclaimed in debate, that, “if, by a peculiar interposition of Divine power, all the wisest men of every age and of every country could be collected into one assembly, he did not believe that their united wisdom would be capable of forming even a tolerable constitution,”[84]—meaning, of course, that a constitution must be derived from habits and convictions, and not from any invention. There is sound sense in the remark; and it is in this spirit that I turn from a discussion having only this value, that it shows how little there is in the past to interpret the meaning of the Fathers.

Every constitution embodies the principles of its framers. It is a transcript of their minds. If its meaning in any place is open to doubt, or if words are used which seem to have no fixed signification, we cannot err in turning to the framers; and their authority increases in proportion to the evidence they have left on the question. By “a republican form of government” our fathers plainly intended a government representing the principles for which they had struggled. Now, if it appears that through years of controversy they insisted on certain principles as vital to free government, even to the extent of encountering the mother country in war,—that afterward, on solemn occasions, they heralded these principles to the world as “self-evident truths,”—thatalso, in declared opinions, they sustained these principles,—and that in public acts they embodied these principles,—then is it beyond dispute that these principles must have entered into the idea of the government they took pains to place under the guaranty of the nation. But all these things can be shown unanswerably.

In these words of hypothesis I foreshadow the four different heads under which these principles may be seen.

First, as asserted by the Fathers throughout the long radical controversy which culminated in war.

Secondly, as announced in solemn declarations.

Thirdly, as sustained in declared opinions.

Fourthly, as embodied in public acts.

1. I begin withthe principles asserted by our fathers throughout the protracted controversy that preceded the Revolution. If Senators ask why our fathers struggled so long in controversy with the mother country, and then went forth to battle, they will find that it was to establish the very principles for which I now contend. To secure the natural rights of men, and especially to vindicate the controlling maxim that there can be no taxation without representation, they fought with argument and then with arms. Had these been conceded, there would have been no Lexington or Bunker Hill, and the Colonies would have continued yet longer under transatlantic rule. The first object was not independence, but the establishment of these principles; and when at last independence began, it was because these principles could be secured in no other way. Therefore the triumph of independence was the triumph of these principles, which necessarily enteredinto and became the animating soul of the Republic then and there born. The evidence is complete, and, if I dwell on it with minuteness, it is because of its decisive character.

The great controversy opened with the pretension of Parliament to tax the Colonies, first disclosed to Benjamin Franklin as early as 1754. It was at the time a profound secret; but the patriot philosopher, whose rare intelligence embraced the natural laws of government not less than those of science, in a few masterly sentences exposed the injustice of taxation without representation.[85]For a moment the Ministry shrank back; but at last, when the power of France had been humbled, and the Colonies were no longer needed as allies in war, George Grenville, blind to principle and only seeing an increase of revenue, renewed the irrational claim. The Colonies were to be taxed by the Parliament in which they had no representation. Two millions and a half of people—for such was the population then—were to pay taxes without voice in determining them. The men of that day listened to the tidings with dismay. In this ministerial outrage they saw the overthrow of their liberties, whether founded on natural rights or on the rights of British subjects. In their conclusions they were confirmed by two names of authority in British history, Algernon Sidney and John Locke, each of whom solemnly asserted the liberties now in danger. One had borne his testimony on the scaffold, the other in exile.

Sidney, in his Discourses on Government, did not hesitate to say, that “God leaves to man the choiceof forms in government,”—and then again, that “all just magistratical power is from the people.”[86]Such words were calculated to strengthen the sentiment of human freedom. But it was Locke who gave formal expression to the very principles now assailed. In a famous passage of his work on Civil Government, inspired and tempered by his exile in Holland, this eminent Englishman bore his testimony.

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