“The fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States provides that the United States shall guaranty to every State in the Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and, on the application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence. “_Under this article of the Constitution, it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State. For, as the United States guaranty to each State a republican government, Congress must necessarily decide what government is established in the State, before it can determine whether it is republican or not._”[184] In the exercise of this power two courses are open. One is to impose an irrepealable condition upon the unrepublican States, requiring them, before recognition, to re-form their governments to the satisfaction of Congress. The other, and more direct, is by Act of Congress, in performance of the guaranty, and according to the plenary authority “for carrying into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States,” to provide all needful safeguards in the unrepublican States, and especially to place the Equal Rights of All under the guardianship of National Law. Against the exercise of this power there are but two arguments. First, that the Constitution, by providing that “the electors in each State shall have the _qualifications_ requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature,” has reserved to each State the power of excluding citizens merely on account of color, even though constituting more than a majority of the population. The other argument is, that, since certain States at the North have disfranchised the few colored persons within their borders, the United States are so far constrained by this example that they cannot protect the millions of freedmen in the Rebel States from disfranchisement, and cannot save the Republic from the peril of crying injustice. I know not which of these two arguments is the least reasonable, or rather, which is the most reprehensible. They are both unreasonable, and both reprehensible. They both do violence to the true principles of the National Constitution, if not to common sense.