“Under every view of the subject, it seems indispensable that the mass of citizens should not be without a voice in making the laws which they are to obey, and in choosing the magistrates who are to administer them.”[137]
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]