rantee to every State in
this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of
them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the
Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic
Violence.

A Republican Form of Government

It was established in the pioneer case of Luther _v._ Borden,[280] that
questions arising under this section are political, not judicial, in
character, and that "it rests with Congress to decide what government is
the established one in a State * * * as well as its republican
character."[281] Upon Congress also rested the duty to restore
republican governments to the States which seceded from the Union at the
time of the Civil War. In Texas _v._ White[282] the Supreme Court
declared that the action of the President in setting up provisional
governments at the end of the war was justified, if at all, only as an
exercise of his powers as Commander in Chief and that such governments
were to be regarded merely as provisional regimes to perform the
functions of government pending action by Congress. On the ground that
the questions were not justiciable in character, the Supreme Court has
refused to consider whether the adoption of the initiative and
referendum,[283] or the delegation of legislative power to other
departments of government[284] is compatible with a republican form of
government. This guarantee does not give the Supreme Court jurisdiction
to review a decision of a State court sustaining a determination of an
election contest for the office of governor made by a State legislature
under the authority of a State constitution.[285] Inasmuch as women were
denied the right to vote in most, if not all, of the original thirteen
States, it was held, prior to the adoption of Amendment XIX, that a
State government could be challenged under this clause by reason of the
fact that it did not permit women to vote.[286]

Protection Against Domestic Violence

The Supreme Court also held in Luther _v._ Borden[287] that it rested
with Congress to determine upon the means proper to fulfill the
constitutional guarantee of protection to the States against domestic
violence. Chief Justice Taney declared that Congress might have placed
it in the power of a court to decide when the contingency had happened
which required the Federal Government to interfere. Instead, Congress
had, by the act of February 28, 1795,[288] authorized the President to
call o