Republican Form of Government
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 5 anchored passages
a republic · a republican form of government · republican form · republican form of government · republican principles
in the texts
Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated
The constitutionally guaranteed form of government for each state, defined in the passage chiefly by the criterion of representation.
Among these, the fourth section declares, that the United States shall guarantee to every state in the union a republican form of government.
Its end is “a republican form of government,” The meaning of this expression is not so unsettled here as in other countries, because we agree in one descriptive character, as essential to the existence of a republican form of government.
Ex post facto laws, and laws impairing contracts, are recognized as contrary to republican principles, because they are inconsistent with the freedom of property or of labour, the preservation of which is an essential object of those principles;
The Unconstitutionality of Slavery
The political form in which government is controlled by and protects the whole body of the people, contrasted with oligarchy or despotism.
One of these grounds is, that it would be impossible, consistently with the other provisions of the constitution, that the general government itself could be republican, unless the State governments were republican also.
It is indispensable to a republican form of government, that the public, the mass of the people, if not the entire people, participate in the grant of powers to the government, and in the protection afforded by the government.
If, then, it was indispensable to the existence and authority of both governments, within the territory of each State, that the same body, and only the same body of electors, that were represented in one of the governments, should be represented in the other, it was clearly indispensable, in order that the national one should be republican, that the State governments should be republican also.