Such are the public acts of the States, collectively and individually, at the adoption of the National Constitution, illustrating with rare harmony the American idea of a Republic, and testifying against any exclusion founded on color. Add to these, that the National Constitution, carefully excepting from the basis of Representation “Indians _not taxed_,” pays open homage to the principle that there can be no taxation without representation; add then that it expressly founds the Government upon “the people,” not only in the preamble, which begins “We the people,” but also in providing that the House of Representatives shall be “chosen by the people of the several States”; add also the crowning fact, that it recognizes no distinction of color, that it treats all with the same impartial justice, that the word “white” does not appear there, and who are we, Sir, who dare foist into this Magna Charta an oligarchical idea which finds no sanction in its republican text?
Here I bring this part of the argument to a close. We have seen the origin of the controversy which led to the Revolution, when Otis, with such solid claim, insisted upon Equal Rights, and then, giving practical effect to the grand demand, sounded the battle-cry, “Taxation without Representation is Tyranny”; we have followed the controversy in its anxious stages, where these principles were constantly asserted and constantly denied, until it broke forth in battle; we have seen these principles adopted as the very frontlet of the Republic, when it assumed its place in the family of nations, and then again when it ordained its Constitution; we have seen them avowed and illustrated in memorable words by the greatest authorities of our history; lastly, we have seen them embodied in public acts of the States collectively and individually; and now, out of this concurring, cumulative, and unimpeachable testimony, constituting a speaking aggregation absolutely without precedent, I offer you the American definition of a Republican form of government. In vain do you cite philosophers or publicists, or the examples of former history. Against these I put the early and constant postulates of the Fathers, the corporate declarations of the Fathers, the avowed opinions of the Fathers, and the public acts of the Fathers, all with one voice proclaiming, first, that all men are equal in rights, and, secondly, that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed; and here is the American idea of a Republic, which must be adopted in the interpretation of the National Constitution. You cannot reject it. As well reject the Decalogue in determining moral duties, or reject the multiplication-table in determining a question of arithmetic.