But, of all the words in all languages, perhaps there has been none so much abused in this way as the words Republic, Commonwealth, and Popular State.

It is plain that our fathers, when they adopted the “guaranty” of “a republican form of government,” intended something certain, or which, if not certain on the face, could be made certain.

They did not use words to signify “anything, everything, or nothing”; nor did they use words which were as applicable to England and Poland as to the United States.

Therefore I cannot err in putting aside examples which, however they illustrate republican government in times past, are utterly out of place as a guide to the interpretation of the National Constitution.

Something better must be found: nor is it wanting.

Among these, none is of higher authority than Montesquieu, who brought to political science study, genius, and a liberal spirit.

Surely an aristocracy, “where the sovereign power is in the hands of part of the people,” cannot find a just place in our political system.

It may be “a republican form of government” according to Montesquieu, but it cannot be according to American institutions.

If the republic is in the power of one, penes unum, it is a monarchy; if in the power of a few, penes paucos, it is an aristocracy; if in the power of all, penes universos, it is a democracy.

It says nothing of equality of rights, or of that great touchstone of the republican idea, the dependence of taxation upon representation.

And still further, it would throw its shield over a government which “frameth mischief by a law.” This will not do.

Here, again, nothing is said of aristocracy or oligarchy, which coexist with an elective chief magistrate,--as in Venice, where the elected Doge was surrounded by an oligarchy of nobles, and in Holland, where the elected Stadtholder was a…

The Pope of Rome is an elective chief magistrate; so also is the Grand Lama; but surely the States of the Church are not republican, nor is Thibet.

If others thus far have failed, it is because they have looked across the sea instead of at home, and have searched foreign history and example instead of simply recognizing the history and example of their own country.

There is sound sense in the remark; and it is in this spirit that I turn from a discussion having only this value, that it shows how little there is in the past to interpret the meaning of the Fathers.

Every constitution embodies the principles of its framers.

If its meaning in any place is open to doubt, or if words are used which seem to have no fixed signification, we cannot err in turning to the framers; and their authority increases in proportion to the evidence they have left on the…

By “a republican form of government” our fathers plainly intended a government representing the principles for which they had struggled.

If Senators ask why our fathers struggled so long in controversy with the mother country, and then went forth to battle, they will find that it was to establish the very principles for which I now contend.

To secure the natural rights of men, and especially to vindicate the controlling maxim that there can be no taxation without representation, they fought with argument and then with arms.

The first object was not independence, but the establishment of these principles; and when at last independence began, it was because these principles could be secured in no other way.

Therefore the triumph of independence was the triumph of these principles, which necessarily entered into and became the animating soul of the Republic then and there born.

Here is a plain enunciation of two capital truths: first, that all political society stands only on the consent of the governed; and, secondly, that taxation without representation is an invasion of fundamental right.

As they spoke to our fathers, they now speak to us: Sicut patribus, sic nobis.

It was the idea of John Locke; but the fervid orator, with tongue of flame, gave to it the intensity of his own genius.