_Socially_, also, we have an interest in the freedom of all the states. We have an interest in free personal intercourse with all the people living under a common government with ourselves. We wish to be free to discuss, with any and all of them, all the principles of liberty and all the interests of humanity. We wish, when we meet a fellow man, to be at liberty to speak freely with him of his and our condition; to be at liberty to do him a service; to advise with him as to the means of improving his condition; and, if need be, to ask a kindness at his hands. But all these things are incompatible with slavery. Is this such an union as we bargained for? Was it "nominated in the bond," that we should be cut off from these the common rights of human nature? If so, point to the line and letter, where it is so written. Neither of them are to be found. But the contrary is expressly guarantied against the power of both the governments, state and national; for the national government is prohibited from passing any law abridging the freedom of speech and the press, and the state governments are prohibited from maintaining any other than a republican form of government, which of course implies the same freedom. The nation at large have still another interest in the republicanism of each of the states; an interest, too, 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.