The Great Conspiracy, Volume 7 - John Alexander Logan

The prevailing and correct American idea is that "Republican" means: of, or pertaining to, a Republic; that "Republic" means a thing, affair, or matter, closely related to, and touching the "public;" and that the "public" are the "people"—not a small proportion of them, but "the people at large," the whole community, the Nation, the commonalty, the generality. Hence, "a Republican form of government" is, in their opinion, plainly that form which is most closely identified with, and representative of, the generality or majority of the people; or, in the language of Dr. J. E. Worcester, it is "That form of government or of a State, in which the supreme power is vested in the people, or in representatives elected by the people."

It is obvious that there can be no such thing as "a republic," which is, at the same time, "an aristocracy;" for the moment that which was "a republic" becomes "an aristocracy," that moment it ceases to be "a republic." So also can there be no such thing as "a republic" which is "an oligarchy," for, as "a republic" is a government of the many, or, as President Lincoln well termed it, "a government of the people, by the people, for the people"—so it must cease to be "a republic," when the supreme power is in the hands of the oligarchic few.

There can be but two kinds of republics proper—one a democratic republic, which is impossible for a great and populous Nation like ours, but which may have answered for some of the small republics of ancient Greece; the other, a representative republic, such as is boasted by the United States. And this is the kind palpably meant by the Fathers, when, for the very purpose of nipping in the bud any anti-republican Conspiracy likely to germinate from Slavery, they inserted in the Great Charter of American Liberties the solemn and irrevocable mandate: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." That they meant this majority rule—this government by the many, instead of the few—this rule of the People, as against any possible minority rule, by, or through, oligarchs or aristocrats, is susceptible of proof in other ways.

It is a safe guide, in attempting to correctly expound the Constitution of the United States, to be careful that the construction insisted on, is compatible and harmonious with the spirit of that great instrument; so that—as was said by an eloquent and distinguished Massachusetts statesman of twenty years ago, in discussing this very point—"the guarantee of a Republican form of government must have a meaning congenial with the purposes of the Constitution." Those purposes, of course, are expressed in its preamble, or in the body of the instrument, or in both. The preamble itself, in this case, is sufficient to show them. It commences with the significant words: "We THE PEOPLE of the United States"—words, instinct with the very consciousness of the possession of that supreme power by the People or public, which made this not only a Nation, but a Republic; and, after stating the purposes or objects sought by the People in thus instituting this Republic, proceeds to use that supreme political power vested in them, by ordaining and establishing "this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America." And, from the very first article, down to the last, of that "Constitution," or "structure," or "frame," or "form" of government, already self-evidently and self-consciously and avowedly Republican, that form is fashioned into a distinctively representative Republican government.

The purposes themselves, as declared in the preamble, for which the People of the United States thus spake this representative Republic into being, are also full of light. Those purposes were "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the General Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

How is it possible, for instance, that "the Blessings of Liberty" are to be secured to "ourselves and our Posterity," if citizens of the United States, despite the XVth Amendment of that Constitution, find—through the machinations of political organizations—their right to vote, both abridged and denied, in many of the States, "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude?" How, if, in such States, "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures," is habitually violated, despite the IVth Amendment of that Constitution? How, if, in such States, persons are notoriously and frequently "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," in violation of the Vth Amendment of that Constitution? Yet such is the state of affairs generally prevalent in many States of the Solid South.

These provisions in the Constitution were, with others, placed there for the very purpose of securing "the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," of promoting the "General Welfare," of establishing "Justice," of insuring "domestic Tranquillity" and making "a more perfect Union"—and the violation of those provisions, or any one of them, in any part of our Land, by any part of our People, in any one of the States, is not only subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary, but constitutes a demand, in itself, upon the National Government, to obey that imperative mandate of the Constitution (Sec. 4, article IV.) comprehended in the words: "The United States SHALL guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government."

[The meaning of these words is correctly given in an opinion of Justice Bronson of New York (4 Hill's Reports, 146) in these words:

"The meaning of the section then seems to be, that no member of the State shall be disfranchised or deprived of any of his rights or privileges unless the matter shall be adjudged against him upon trial had according to the course of common law. The words 'due process of law' cannot mean less than a prosecution or suit instituted and conducted according to the prescribed forms and solemnities for ascertaining guilt or determining the title to property.">[