There is another consideration not to be forgotten. In affixing the proper meaning to the text, and determining what is a “republican form of government,” you act as a court in the last resort, from which there is no appeal. You are sole and exclusive judges. You may decide as you please. Rarely in history has such an opportunity been offered to the statesman. You may raise the name of Republic to majestic heights of justice and truth, or you may let it drag low down in the depths of wrong and falsehood. You may make it fulfil the idea of John Milton, when he said that “a commonwealth ought to be but as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth and stature of an honest man, as big and compact in virtue as in body”;[47] or you may let it shrink into the ignoble form of a pretender, with the name of Republic, but without its soul.
Before considering this vital question, it is proper to regard the origin of this “guaranty,” and see how it obtained place in the Constitution. Perhaps there was no clause more cordially welcomed; nor does it appear that it was subjected to any serious criticism in the National Convention or in any State Convention. It is not found in the Articles of Confederation; but we learn from the “Federalist”[48] that the want of this provision was felt as a capital defect in the plan of the Confederation. Mr. Madison, in a private record, made in advance of the National Convention, and which has only recently seen the light, enumerates among defects of the Confederation what he calls “want of guaranty to the States of their Constitutions and laws _against internal violence_”; and he then proceeds to anticipate danger from Slavery, which could be counteracted only by such “guaranty.” Showing why this was needed, he says, that, “according to _republican theory_, right and power, being both vested in the majority, are held to be synonymous; according to fact and experience, a minority may, in an appeal to force, be an overmatch for the majority”; and he remarks, in words which furnish a key to the “guaranty” afterwards adopted, “Where Slavery exists, the _republican theory_ becomes still more fallacious,”--thus showing, that, at its very origin, it was regarded as a check upon Slavery.[49]