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The Guarantee Clause, Article IV Section IV, explains that the United States requires every state to have a republican form of government, meaning elective government and therefore majority rule. The clause also ensures each state will be federally protected against invasions and domestic unrest or violence. The Guarantee Clause was a response to the country’s recent history. Newly independent from the monarchy, the Constitution framers saw guaranteeing majority rule as crucial to protecting the country from returning to a monarchy or establishing a dictatorship or military rule. In addition, federal protection against invasions was also in mind after the American Revolution. Federal protection against domestic unrest or violence is seen as a direct response to Shays’ Rebellion of 1786-1787 when Massachusetts farmers led an armed uprising, and Congress was unable to deploy troops from other states to stop them. These recent events likely influenced the drafters of the Constitution to include these protections as a “guarantee.”
Matters of debate concerning the Guarantee Clause center around the tension between a federal guarantee of majority rule and state autonomy to govern themselves. For instance, in the case, Oregon v. Mitchell in 1970, the Supreme Court decided that the federal government was limited to setting a minimum voting age for federal elections only. The Twenty-Sixth Amendment overturned this case, setting a minimum age of 18 across all elections, state and federal. Similarly, Amendments, XV, XIX, and XXIV declare that state elections may not discriminate by race or sex, or charge poll taxes, respectively. Another debate is related to the disenfranchisement of African Americans during Reconstruction. After the Civil War, African Americans were the majority in Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, which did not allow them to vote. This disenfranchisement was a violation of the Guarantee Clause as majority rule was obstructed. While the Guarantee Clause obligates the federal government to step in, Congress does not have authority to police state elections. Similarly, the question of whether the Guarantee Clause should protect against voter suppression is also a matter of state versus federal authority. Voter suppression undermines the fundamental principles of representative democracy by limiting access to the ballot. It can be argued that the Guarantee Clause should include protecting citizens’ rights to vote freely and without discrimination. Dictating how polls are run in state elections, however, could be considered infringing on state autonomy.
In the debate concerning federal protection against voter suppression, I find the argument that guaranteeing a republican form of government for states means guaranteeing protection against voter suppression to be most persuasive. Federally protecting voters is difficult, however, as it can be considered encroaching on state autonomy. Federally standardizing the polling process across states would protect against voter suppression but takes away from states’ autonomy to run their own elections. Aside from this issue, having different state polling processes protects state elections from fraud or external interference as it makes elections harder to systematically hack. The debates surrounding the Guarantee Clause capture the tension in balancing federal and state power.