An American Perspective: A Republic

Chapter 1- Liberty

§5. A Republic

Within their respective sovereign capacities of the People, and by the delegated surrogate powers of their State representatives, a Constitution for the United States of America was ordained and established as a republic.

“Let us now turn to the Constitution. The people therein declare that their design in establishing it comprehended six objects. 1st. To form a more perfect union. 2nd. To establish justice. 3rd. To ensure domestic tranquillity. 4th. To provide for the common defence. 5th. To promote the general welfare. 6th. To secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity.”58

Take notice that the People exercised their sovereign powers through elected representatives from the United States, creating a constitution for the “United States of America” and decreeing it as the “Law of the Land”.

So, we have the People, the united States and the United States of America, of which is a republic. The States of the united States were to be in alignment with the Law of the Land and in the form of a republican government, as decreed in Article IV, Sect. 4 of the US Constitution.

Article IV, Section 4 - “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a Republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.”59

“Republican government. One in which the powers of sovereignty are vested in the people and are exercised by the people, either directly, or through representatives chosen by the people, to whom those powers are specially delegated.”60

“Strictly speaking, in our republican forms of government, the absolute sovereignty of the nation is in the people of the nation; and the residuary sovereignty of each state, not granted to any of its public functionaries, is in the people of the state.”61

“A republic is not an easy form of government to live under, and when the responsibility of citizenship is evaded, democracy decays and authoritarianism takes over.” 62

When those who have taken an oath to serve and protect the constitution through the delegated authority of the people evade their ascribed responsibilities and duties by cloaking themselves with the color of authority, the aspect of a republican form of government slowly decays into one that exists for the protection of it’s own interests, rather than that of which it was established for. It is the duty of the people to scrutinize their system of governance, and to reprimand or penalize for any gross negligence of granted authority eclipsed from their sovereignty.

“Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. Government is force; like fire it is a dangerous servant—and a fearful master.” 63

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” 64

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” 65

[58 Chisholm v. Georgia (US) 2 Dall 419, 454, 1 L Ed 440, 455 @SLL (1793), p. 2 U.S. 475 59 Constitution for the United States of America (1789) Article IV, section 4
60 In re Duncan, 139 U.S. 449, 11 S.Ct. 573, 35 L.Ed. 219; Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162, 22 L.Ed. 627 (1875); Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition, p. 626 (1979)
61 A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America, and of the Several States of the American Union; With References to the Civil and Other systems of Foreign Law, to which is added Kelhams Dictionary of the Norman and Old French Language by John Bouvier (1856); pg. 535; 2 Dall. 471 And see, generally, 2 Dall. 433, 455; 3 id. 93; 1 Story, Const., sect. 208; 1 Troullier, n. 20; Merlin, Repert.
62 A Republic, If You Can Keep It, by Earl Warren, p. 13 (1972) 63 George Washington, attributed, (1797)
64 "The Union," Pennsylvania Inquirer and Daily Courier - (January 4, 1838) - Issue 4, column B; This quotation was well-known in the nineteenth century, and was in fact used by a number of famous figures, including Frederick Douglass, James Buchanan, and William Henry Harrison. It is most often traced back, ultimately, to John Philpot Curran's statement, "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." While the form in question, "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," is most often attributed to Wendell Phillips, this form is in fact far older. The earliest appearance in print that we have been able to locate is 1809, and it is clear that this source is quoting yet an earlier (unnamed) source. Several nineteenth-century sources claim that this was a quotation from Junius, an anonymous political writer who wrote a series of letters to the London Public Advertiser between 1769 and 1772, but we have not found this exact statement in his writings, either.
65 Thomas Jefferson, letter to Archibald Stuart (1791) ME 8:276 ]