The Unconstitutionality of Slavery

by Lysander Spooner

And what is "a republican form of government?" It is where the government is a commonwealth—the property of the public, of the mass of the people, or of the entire people. It is where the government is made up of, and controlled by the combined will and power of the public, or the mass of the people—and where, of natural consequence, it will have, for its object, the protection of the rights of all. It is indispensable to a republican form of government, that the public, the mass of the people, if not the entire people, participate in the grant of powers to the government, and in the protection afforded by the government. It is impossible, therefore, that a government, under which any considerable number of the people, (if indeed any number of the people,) are disfranchised and enslaved, can be a republic. A slave government is an oligarchy; and one too of the most arbitrary and criminal character.

Strange that men, who have eyes capable of discovering in the constitution so many covert, implied and insinuated guaranties of crime and slavery, should be blind to the legal import of so open, explicit and peremptory a guaranty of freedom, equality and right.

Even if there had really been, in the constitution, two such contradictory guaranties, as one of liberty or republicanism in every state of the Union, and another of slavery in every state where one portion of the people might succeed in enslaving the rest, one of these guaranties must have given way to the other—for, being plainly inconsistent with each other, they could not have stood together. And it might safely have been left either to legal or to moral rules to determine which of the two should prevail—whether a provision to perpetuate slavery should triumph over a guaranty of freedom.

But it is constantly asserted, in substance, that there is "no propriety" in the general government's interfering in the local governments of the states. Those who make this assertion appear to regard a state as a single individual, capable of managing his own affairs, and of course unwilling to tolerate the intermeddling of others. But a state is not an individual. It is made up of large numbers of individuals, each and all of whom, amid the intestine mutations and strifes to which states are subject, are liable, at some time or other, to be trampled upon by the strongest party, and may therefore reasonably choose to secure, in advance, some external protection against such emergencies, by making reciprocal contracts with other people similarly exposed in the neighboring states. Such contracts for mutual succor and protection, are perfectly fit and proper for any people who are so situated as to be able to contribute to each other's security. They are as fit and proper as any other political contracts whatever; and are founded on precisely the same principle of combination for mutual defence—for what are any of our political contracts and forms of government, but contracts between man and man for mutual protection against those who may conspire to injure either or all of them? But these contracts, fit and proper between all men, are peculiarly appropriate to those, who, while they are members of various local and subordinate associations, are, at the same time, united for specific purposes, under one general government. Such a mutual contract, between the people of all the states, is contained in this clause of the constitution. And it gives to them all an additional guaranty for their liberties.

Those who object to this guaranty, however, choose to overlook all these considerations, and then appear to imagine that their notions of "propriety" on this point, can effectually expunge the guaranty itself from the constitution. In indulging this fancy, however, they undoubtedly overrate the legal, and perhaps also the moral effect of such superlative fastidiousness; for even if there were "no propriety" in the interference of the general government to maintain a republican form of government in the states, still, the unequivocal pledge to that effect, given in the constitution, would nevertheless remain an irresistible rebutter to the allegation that the constitution intended to guaranty its opposite, slavery, an oligarchy, or a despotism. It would, therefore, entirely forbid all those inferences and implications, drawn by slaveholders, from those other phrases, which they quote as guaranties of slavery.[25]

But the "propriety," and not only the propriety, but the necessity of this guaranty, may be maintained on still other grounds.

One of these grounds is, that it would be impossible, consistently with the other provisions of the constitution, that the general government itself could be republican, unless the state governments were republican also. For example. The constitution provides, in regard to the choice of congressional representatives, that "the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature." It was indispensable to the internal quiet of each state, that the same body of electors, who should participate in the suffrage of the state governments, should participate also in the suffrage of the national one—and vice versa, that those who should participate in the national suffrage, should also participate in that of the state. If the general and state constitutions had each a different body of electors within each state, it would obviously give rise at once to implacable and irreconcilable feuds, that would result in the overthrow of one or the other of the governments within the state. Harmony or inveterate conflict was the only alternative. As conflict would necessarily result in the destruction of one of the governments, harmony was the only mode by which both could be preserved. And this harmony could be secured only by giving to the same body of electors, suffrage in both the governments.

If, then, it was indispensable to the existence and authority of both governments, within the territory of each state, that the same body, and only the same body of electors, that were represented in one of the governments, should be represented in the other, it was clearly indispensable, in order that the national one should be republican, that the state governments should be republican also. Hence the interest which the nation at large have in the republicanism of each of the state governments.

It being necessary that the suffrage under the national government, within each state, should be the same as for the state government, it is apparent that unless the several state governments were all formed on one general plan, or unless the electors of all the states were united in the acknowledgement of some general controlling principle, applicable to both governments, it would be impossible that they could unite in the maintenance of a general government that should act in harmony with the state governments; because the same body of electors, that should support a despotic government in the state, could not consistently or cordially unite, or even unite at all, in the support of a republican government for the nation. If one portion of the state governments should be republican, like Vermont, where suffrage is open to all—and another portion should be oligarchies, like South Carolina, and the other slave states—another portion limited monarchies, like England—another portion ecclesiastical, like that of the Pope of Rome, or that of the ancient Jews—and another portion absolute despotisms, like that of Nicholas, in Russia, or that of Francia, in Paraguay,—and the same body, and only the same body, of electors, that sustained each of these governments at home, should be represented in the national government, each state would send into the national legislature the representatives of its own peculiar system of government; and the national legislature, instead of being composed of the representatives of any one theory, or principle of government, would be made up of the representatives of all the various theories of government that prevailed in the different states—from the extreme of democracy to the extreme of despotism. And each of these various representatives would be obliged to carry his local principles into the national legislature, else he could not retain the confidence of his peculiar constituents. The consequence would be, that the national legislature would present the spectacle of a perfect Babel of discordant tongues, elements, passions, interests and purposes, instead of an assembly united for the accomplishment of any agreed or distinct object.

Without some distinct and agreed object as a bond of union, it would obviously be impracticable for any general union of the whole people to subsist; and that bond of union, whatever it be, must also harmonize with the principles of each of the state governments, else there would be a collision between the general and state governments.