Republican Form of Government
By Rev. H. M. Turner
Christian Recorder: October 3, 1863
Mr. Editor:--I closed my last week’s article by referring to the advantages which have occurred to England under a limited monarchy. Monarchical governments is an absolute form….in some instances be beneficial among a savage and brutal people, or a people passing through a transcendental state, but whoever intelligences begins to vie with ignorance for the …the subsequent will depend upon republican limitations. These that adhere to monarchical governments would feel considerably disgusted to find themselves beleaguered by domestic institutions where the voice of the populace was unheeded and what works well on the small, will work equally well on a large scale.
Take if you please, for example, the progress of everything in the United States since the Declaration of Independence was read and adopted, what has been its successes in art, science, literature and religion? Every free and accepted citizen could look at the presidential chair with a hope….that gave nerve and impulse to whatever his pursuit if distinction might be. But if he chose not to look so lofty. How many other positions environed with the world’s honor hung out before him in inspiring charms. In short, where upon the face of the earth, or in all of history has a nation been known to make such advancement in everything that was noble and distinguishing as this. It does not nor never did exist: Why? Because from the time it took an existence among the nations of the earth it begin to recognize royal blood as coursing in every man’s veins. Republican governments declare by their very existence, that God of one blood made all the nations of the earth; it makes every man a king, and every woman a queen, while every child heirs to the throne, which throne is freedom, independence, and liberty of pen and lip. Supposed the American people had placed a king upon a throne in Washington City instead of a president in a chair, what would have been the state of things to-day. Do you suppose that that one-half of the intelligence which now exists among the people, would have existed? Why, no. The speeches which have been delivered in….the country for presidents have done more of the spread of knowledge, thus would have been done in two hundred years under a royal administration. This does not embrace the competition produced by the political parties in congressional, legislative, and municipal elections.
The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency is worth to the nation, mentally, twenty-five years of schooling. When have our people in the interior of the South known so much about politics? What geography could have ever taught them so much concerning the localities of the country as the present war has taught them? And after all, what is this war, but a clash of principles, woke up by this republican government? If the founders of this country had taken Gen. Washington and made his blood royal, and proclaimed and declared his posterity to be rightful sovereigns of the nations, while an heir of his could be found, you would not have got a king or queen on the throne opposed to slavery, but on the contrary, a republican form of government has placed one of the greatest kings upon its throne the world ever knew: that man is Abraham Lincoln, king of justice, king of freedom, king of Negroes, king of Jeff Davis and his hell-deserving confederacy. The world moves under a republican government. And need we spend time in predicting to future greatness, the ultimate results of it, etc.? No! it is enough to know it has to be the deliverer of the world of oppression. It is delivering its own oppressed children, and is an asylum for all the nations of oppression.
In consideration of these things, is it just, is it right to stand by and see republican Mexico shattered to pieces and Maximilian, the Austrian prince erect an imperial throne upon the ruins thereof? Should he not be warned to keep off of the American continent? Whether South or North Americans, I think every man, woman and child ought to rise and defy his entrance. It is the policy of France to put him on the throne and then, if American says anything, to invade Austria to help defend her royal blood. Allow this machine to commence running in America and away go republican institutions. I believe this government can drown Jeff. Davis….in the Red Sea and send three hundred thousand to Mexico to welcome Maximilian in his imperial throne with as much canister and….as would blow him into another region. I think it an insult to America to offer such a thing in the face of all its intelligence, enlightenment and sensibility.
I would like to see an army of colored men, equal to that which was under Gen. McClellan, well drilled, over in Mexico when the contemplated king or superior makes his appearance. I think France and he both would be glad to get away faster than they came. Let the colored people of America rise in the greatness of their prowess and overturn such an imagination and take it ourselves. I believe that the United States would supply us with both money and guns; indeed, the nation will stand at our backs, and soon be in our front. For every man, white or colored, who loves republican institutions who lend us aid; besides, we would take one of the richest….for its minerals on earth. You will hear from me again.
Washington, September 29, 1863
