Before considering this vital question, it is proper to regard the origin of this “guaranty,” and see how it obtained place in the Constitution. Perhaps there was no clause more cordially welcomed; nor does it appear that it was subjected to any serious criticism in the National Convention or in any State Convention. It is not found in the Articles of Confederation; but we learn from the “Federalist”[48] that the want of this provision was felt as a capital defect in the plan of the Confederation. Mr. Madison, in a private record, made in advance of the National Convention, and which has only recently seen the light, enumerates among defects of the Confederation what he calls “want of guaranty to the States of their Constitutions and laws _against internal violence_”; and he then proceeds to anticipate danger from Slavery, which could be counteracted only by such “guaranty.” Showing why this was needed, he says, that, “according to _republican theory_, right and power, being both vested in the majority, are held to be synonymous; according to fact and experience, a minority may, in an appeal to force, be an overmatch for the majority”; and he remarks, in words which furnish a key to the “guaranty” afterwards adopted, “Where Slavery exists, the _republican theory_ becomes still more fallacious,”--thus showing, that, at its very origin, it was regarded as a check upon Slavery.[49] Hamilton was not less positive than Madison. In his sketch of a Constitution, communicated to Madison, and preserved by him,[50] this “guaranty” is found; and in the elaborate brief of his argument on the Constitution, it is specified as one of its “miscellaneous advantages.” The last words of this remarkable paper are “guaranty of republican governments.”[51] Randolph, of Virginia, in his sketch of a Constitution, proposed the “guaranty,” and, in a speech setting forth the evils of the old system, he said of the remedy, that “the basis must be the _republican principle_.”[52] Colonel Mason, of Virginia, taking up the same strain, said, that, though the people might be unsettled on some points, they were settled as to others, among which he put foremost “an attachment to _republican government_.”[53]