There is that key-stone clause, by which it is expressly declared that “the United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government”; and Congress is empowered to enforce this guaranty. The definition of a republican government was solemnly announced by our fathers, first, in that great battle-cry which preceded the Revolution, “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” and, secondly, in the great Declaration at the birth of the Republic, that all men are equal in rights, and that just government stands only on the consent of the governed. A Republic is where taxation and representation go hand in hand, where all are equal in rights, and no man is excluded from participation in the government. Such is the definition of a republican government, which it is the duty of Congress to maintain. Here is a bountiful source of power, which cannot be called in question. In the execution of the guaranty Congress may--nay, must--require that there shall be no Inequality, Caste, or Oligarchy of the Skin. I know well the arguments of the champions. They insist that the definition of a Republican Government is to be found in the State Constitutions at the adoption of the National Constitution; and as all these, except Massachusetts, recognized Slavery, they find that the denial of Human Rights is republican. But the champions forget that Slavery was regarded as a temporary exception,--that the slave, who was not represented, was not taxed,--that he was not part of the “body-politic,”--that the difference at that time was not between white and black, but between slave and freeman, precisely as in the days of Magna Charta,--that in most of the States all freemen, without distinction of color, were citizens,--and that, according to the history of the times, there was no State which ventured to announce in its Constitution a discrimination founded on color, except Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina,--this last the persevering enemy of republican government for successive generations; so that, if we look at the State Constitutions, we find that they also testify to the true definition. There are words of authority which the champions forget also. They forget Magna Charta, that great title-deed called “the most august diploma and sacred anchor of English liberties,” where, after declaring that “there shall be but _one measure_ throughout the realm,”[44] it is announced in memorable words, that “_no freeman_ shall be disseized of his freehold or liberties but by legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land,”[45] meaning, of course, the law of the whole land, _in contradistinction to any local law_. The words with which this great guaranty begin still resound: _Nullus liber homo_, “No freeman,” shall be denied the liberties which belong to freemen.