CHAPTER XVI.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF DETAIL, CONCLUDED. GUARANTY OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT AND INTERNAL TRANQUILLITY. Олти то SUPPORT THE CONSTITUTION. MODE OF AMENDMENT. - RATIFICATION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION. SIGNING BY THE MEMBERS OF THE CON

VENTION.

THE power and duty of the United States to guarantee a republican form of government to each State, and to protect each State against invasion and domestic violence, had been declared by a resolution, the general purpose of which has been already described. It should be said here, however, that the objects of such a provision were two; first, to prevent the establishment in any State of any form of government not essentially republican in its character, whether by the action of a minority or of a majority of the inhabitants; second, to protect the State against invasion from without, and against every form of domestic violence.' When the committee of detail came to give effect to the resolution, they prepared an article, which made it the duty of the United States to guarantee to each State a republican form of government, and to protect each State against invasion, without any application from its

1 Elliot, V. 332, 333.

authorities; and to protect the State against domestic violence, on the application of its legislature.1 No change was made by the Convention in the substance of this article, excepting to provide that the application, in a case of domestic violence, may be made by the executive of the State, when the legislature cannot be convened.2

It now remains for me to state what appears to have been the meaning of the framers of the Constitution, embraced in these provisions. It is apparent, then, from all the proceedings and discussions on this subject, that, by guaranteeing a republican form of government, it was not intended to maintain the existing constitutions of the States against all changes. This would have been to exercise a control over the sovereignty of the people of a State, inconsistent with the nature and purposes of the Union. The people must be left entirely free to change their fundamental law, at their own pleasure, subject only to the condition, that they continue the republican form of government. The question arises then, What is that form? Does it imply the existence of some organic law, establishing the departments of a government, and prescribing their powers, or does it admit of a form of the body politic under which the public will may be declared from time to time, either with or without the agency of any established organs or representatives? Is it competent to a State to abolish altogether that body of its funda

1 First draft of the Constitution, Art. XVIII. Elliot, V. 381.

2 Constitution, Art. IV. § 4.

mental law which we call its Constitution, and to proceed as a mere democracy, enacting, expounding, and executing laws by the direct action of the people, and without the intervention of any representative system constituting what is known as a government?

The Constitution of the United States assumes, in so many of its provisions, that the States will possess organized governments, in which legislative, executive, and judicial departments will be known and established, that it must be taken for granted that the existence of such agents of the public will is a necessary feature of a State government, within the meaning of this clause. No State could participate in the government of the Union, without at least two of these agents, namely, a legislature and an executive; for the people of a State, acting in their primary capacity, could not appoint a Senator of the United States; nor fill a vacancy in the office of Senator; nor appoint Electors of the President of the United States, without the previous designation by a legislature of the mode in which such Electors were to be chosen; nor apply to the government of the United States to protect them against "domestic violence," through any other agent than the legislature or the executive of the State. It is manifest, therefore, that each State must have a government, containing at least these distinct departments; and whether this government is organized periodically, under mere laws perpetually re-enacted, and subject to perpetual changes without reference to forms, or

under standing and fundamental laws, changeable only in a prescribed form, and being so far what is called a constitution, it is apparent that there must be a "form of government" possessed of these distinct agencies.

There must be, moreover, not only this "form of government," but it must be a "republican" form; and in order to determine the sense in which this term qualifies the nature of the government in other respects besides those already referred to, it is necessary to take into view the previous history of American political institutions, because that history shows what is meant, in the American sense, by a "republican" government.

History, then, establishes the fact, that, in the American system of government, the people are regarded as the sole original source of all political authority; that all legitimate government must rest upon their will. But it also teaches that the will of the people is to be exercised through representative forms. For even in the exercise of original suffrage, which has never been universal in any of the States of the Union, and in the bestowal of power upon particular organs, those who are regarded as competent to express the will of society are, in that expression, deemed to represent all its members; and those who, in the distribution of political functions, exercise the sovereignty of the people, so far as it has been thus imparted to them, exercise a representative function, to which they are appointed, directly or indirectly, by popular suffrage, that may be more or less restricted,

according to the public will. It may be said, therefore, with strictness, that in the American system a republican government is one based on the right of the people to govern themselves, but requiring that right to be exercised through public organs of a representative character; and these organs constitute the government. How much or how little power shall be imparted to this government, what restrictions shall be imposed upon it, and what the precise functions of its several departments shall be, with respect to the internal concerns of the State, the Constitution of the United States leaves untouched, except in a few particulars. It merely declares that a government having the essential characteristics of an American republican system shall be guaranteed by the United States; that is to say, that no other shall be permitted to be established.

The provision by which the State is protected against domestic violence was necessary to complete the republican character of the system intended to be upheld. The Constitution of the United States assumes that the governments of the States, existing when it goes into operation, are rightfully in the exercise of the authority of the State, and will so continue until they are changed. But it means that no change shall be made by force, by public commotion, or by setting aside the authority of the existing government. It recognizes the right of that government to be protected against domestic violence; in which expression is to be included every species of force directed against that government, excepting the will