t? To protect men from oppression. And our republican doctrine
is that this is best accomplished in a form of government which gives to
the voice of all men the controlling power. 'The voice of the people is
the voice of God,' because humanity is of God. The doctrine is that the
state is made for the individual, not the individual for the state; just
as our Saviour declared that 'the Sabbath was made for man, not man for
the Sabbath.' These things being so (and it is not pretended that they
are novel, for they are very trite), does it not immediately appear how
essentially opposed is slavery to the idea of a republic? Therefore when
the Constitution guarantees to every State a republican form of
government, it guarantees to all the people of every State a voice in
its control. And whatever State disfranchises any portion of its people
violates this provision of the Constitution.

To the objection that, at the time of adopting the Constitution, all the
States were Slave States, with a single exception, and therefore within
the meaning of that instrument slavery and a republican form of
government are not incongruous, there are two answers. First, it is
matter of history that the framers of the Constitution acted throughout
with reference to the eventual abolition of slavery; as has been already
adverted to in this paper. Therefore such States as have retained their
slave establishments have done so in violation of the spirit of this
provision of the Constitution; while such States as have since been
admitted into the Union with slave establishments have been admitted by
compromises, equally in violation of that provision, but acquiesced in
by the whole country, as the slave establishments of the original
States had been, and therefore equally binding on our good faith. We are
now no longer bound by any compromises. We have kept our plighted faith
strictly and fairly, though the Slave States have not. Our duty now is
to reconstruct, if we can, the fabric of the Union. If, in doing this,
we abolish slavery entirely, which makes impossible the full realization
of this guaranteeing clause, the guaranty will spring into new life and
become a power in the law of the land. Secondly, what is meant by a
republican form of government within the meaning of the Constitution
must be determined by reference to the Declaration of Independence,
which is the basis of our Government, and declares the principles of it.
That Declaration was