Republican Form of Government

“

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government

”

This clause, sometimes referred to as the Guarantee Clause, has historically been a part of the debate about the rights of citizens vis-a-vis state governments. The Constitution offers no explanation as to what constitutes a republican government; however, the Federalist Papersgive us an insight as to the intent of the Founders. A republican form of government is distinguished from a pure democracy, which theFounding Fathers wanted to avoid; as James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10, "Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

A crisis in 1840s Rhode Island, the Dorr Rebellion, forced the Supreme Court to rule on the meaning of this clause. At the time, the Rhode Island constitution was the old royal charter established in the 17th century, under which most free white males in the state were disenfranchised. An attempt to hold a popular convention to write a new constitution was declared insurrection by the charter government, and the convention leaders were arrested. One of them brought suit in federal court, arguing that Rhode Island's government was not "republican" in character, and that his arrest (along with all of the government's other acts) were invalid. In Luther v. Borden, 

48 U.S. 1 (1849)

, the Court rejected the notion that the republican character of states lay within the purview of judicial review, holding that “it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State ... as well as its republican character.” In effect, the court held the clause to be non-justiciable.

The Luther v. Borden ruling left to Congress to establish guidelines for the republican nature of state governments. This power became an important part of the initial phases of Reconstruction after the American Civil War. The Radical Republican-led Congress viewed this clause as a tool to shape the governments of the reconquered southern states: the Radical Republicans argued that any state that did not offer equality before the law and suffrage for former slaves could not be considered truly "republican," and thus could be denied Congressional representation.^[

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With the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the power of the federal government to safeguard these rights was added to the Constitution, and this interpretation of Section Four became moot. When the Supreme Court revisited some of the territory covered byLuther v. Borden in cases like Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962), the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause was the basis of its changed decisions.

The establishment of a monarchy, even a constitutional one, by any state appears to be barred by Section 4.

The guarantee of a republican government has been asserted by many advocates to prohibit the use of direct democracy procedures in the states. The use of the initiative, referendum, and recall are all tools of "direct democracy," that allow the electorate to exercise legislative power independently from their republican representatives. The Supreme Court faced a challenge to the use of statewide initiatives in Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company v. Oregon, 223 U.S. 118 (1912). In that case, the Court held that challenges to a state's republican character are non-justiciable political questions, and that the decision of whether a state is "republican" in conformance with the guarantee clause may be decided only by Congress. This doctrine remains valid today. Each time Congress accepts members to the House and Senate, Congress is implicitly acknowledging the legitimacy and republican nature of the state from which the representatives were elected.

Posted via email from Global Politics