The essence of republicanism is freedom. A republic that, like Sparta, permits the enslavement of any portion of its people, is surely not predicated upon the true idea of a republic; and it is worth while to consider that the ancient republics found their bane in slavery, and that the aristocratic republics of modern times, like Venice, have perished. Only those republics survive to-day which, like San Marino, have free institutions. A republic is a country where the whole people is the public, and the state the affair of the whole people. It is a _public affair_ (as its name imports), a thing of the public; and this is not true of any other than a democracy. For the essential idea of such a government is expressed in the maxim: 'the greatest good to the greatest number;' and in that other maxim which is part of our Declaration of Independence, that 'government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.' It needs no argument to show that these maxims are violated in a country where any portion of the people are deprived of their highest good--liberty. For what is the object of government? To protect men from oppression. And our republican doctrine is that this is best accomplished in a form of government which gives to the voice of all men the controlling power. 'The voice of the people is the voice of God,' because humanity is of God. The doctrine is that the state is made for the individual, not the individual for the state; just as our Saviour declared that 'the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.' These things being so (and it is not pretended that they are novel, for they are very trite), does it not immediately appear how essentially opposed is slavery to the idea of a republic? Therefore when the Constitution guarantees to every State a republican form of government, it guarantees to all the people of every State a voice in its control. And whatever State disfranchises any portion of its people violates this provision of the Constitution.