all danger to its continued existence and well-being has ceased to
threaten?--that all the crises perilous to that beneficent popular
governmental form have vanished?--that the climacteric came, and went,
with the breaking out, and suppression, of the Rebellion?--and that
there is nothing alarming in the outlook? Quite likely. The public
mind has not yet been aroused to a sense of the actual revolution
against Republican form of government that has already taken place in
many of the Southern States, much less as to the likelihood of things to
come. The people of any one of the Western, or Northern States,--take
New York, for example,--feel prosperous and happy under the beneficent
workings of the Republican Protective-Tariff system. Business, of all
sorts, recovering from the numerous attacks made upon that prime bulwark
of our American industries, if only let alone, will fairly hum, and look
bright, so far as "the Almighty dollar" is concerned. They know they
have their primaries and conventions, in their wards and counties
throughout their State, and their State Conventions, and their
elections. They know that the voice of the majority of their own
people, uttered through the sacred ballot-box, is practically the Vox
Dei--and that all bow to it. They know also, that this State government
of theirs, with all its ramifications--whether as to its Executive, its
Legislative, its Judicial, and other officials, either elective or
appointed--is a Republican form of government, in the American sense--in
the sense contemplated by the Fathers, when they incorporated into the
revered Constitution of our Country the vital words: "The United States
shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of
government." But they do not realize the vastly different condition of
things in many States of the Solid South, nor how it affects themselves.

And what is this "republican" form of government, thus pledged? It is
true that there are not wanting respectable authorities whose