oo, that is indicated in the same
section in which this republicanism is guarantied. This interest results
from the fact that the nation are pledged to "protect" each of the
states "against domestic violence." Was there no account taken--in
reference either to the cost or the principle of this undertaking--as to
what might be the character of the state governments, which we are thus
pledged to defend against the risings of the people? Did we covenant, in
this clause, to wage war against the rights of man? Did we pledge
ourselves that those, however few, who might ever succeed in getting the
government of a state into their hands, should thenceforth be recognized
as the legitimate power of the state, and be entitled to the whole force
of the general government to aid them in subjecting the remainder of the
people to the degradation and injustice of slavery? Or did the nation
undertake only to guarantee the preservation of "a republican form of
government" against the violence of those who might prove its enemies?
The reason of the thing, and the connexion, in which the two provisions
stand in the constitution, give the answer.

We have yet another interest still, and that no trivial one, in the
republicanism of the state governments; an interest indicated, too, like
the one last mentioned, in the very section in which this republicanism
is assured. It relates to the defence against invasion. The general
government is pledged to defend each of the states against invasion. Is
it a thing of no moment, whether we have given such a pledge to free or
to slave states? Is there no difference in the cost and hazard of
defending one or the other? Is it of no consequence to the expense of
life and money, involved in this undertaking, whether the people of the
state invaded shall be united, as freemen naturally will be, as one man
against the enemy? Or whether, as in slave states, half of them shall be
burning to join the enemy, with the purpose of satisfying with blood the
long account of wrong that shall have accrued against their oppressors?
Did Massachusetts--who during the war of the revolution furnished more
men for the common defence, than all the six southern states
together--did she, immediately on the close of that war, pledge herself,
as the slave holders would have it, that she would lavish her life in
like manner again, for the defence of those whose wickedness and tyranny
in peace should necessarily multiply their enemi