In one of the most remarkable chapters of the “Federalist,” Madison gives expansion to this idea in his formal definition of a Republic:—
“If we resort for a criterion to the different principles on which different forms of government are established, we may define a Republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, OR A FAVORED CLASS OF IT: otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of Republic.”[138]
Thus, in few significant words, does this authority teach that a Republic is a government derived from “the great body of the people,” and not from “a favored class of it.” Better words could not be found for the American definition.
I repeat these two conditions of republican government according to Madison: First, the government must be derived from the great body of the people; and, secondly, it cannot spring from any favored class.
That the colored race should not be excluded from this definition may be justly inferred from his remark, already quoted, that “where Slavery exists the republican theory becomes still more fallacious,”[139] and also from his correspondence at a later day with Lafayette, whose devotion to the great principle of Equal Rights was blazoned before the world. Writing to the latter, November 25, 1820, he said:—
“The Constitutions and laws of the different States are much at variance in the civic character given to free persons of color: those of most of the States, not excepting such as have abolished Slavery, imposing various disqualifications, which degrade them from the rank and rights of white persons. All these perplexities develop more and more the dreadful fruitfulness of the original sin of the African trade.”[140]
“Various disqualifications which degrade them”; “dreadful fruitfulness”: such are some of the terms in which judgment is recorded. Another letter, also to Lafayette, written as late as February 1, 1830, says:—
“Outlets for the freed blacks are alone wanted for a rapid erasure of the blot [of Slavery] from our Republican character.”[141]
Thus, in his opinion, was the treatment of this unhappy people inconsistent with the “Republican character.”