Justice distorted the Declaration, as legitimizing slavery, to make it fit his conception of the Constitution. Together with John C. Calhoun, Taney laid the theoretical basis for the unlimited government of the administrative state by separating the Declaration, properly understood, from the Constitution and thus transforming willfulness into legitimacy. I have argued before that the Thirteenth Amendment brought out the true meaning of the Republican Government Guarantee Clause, among other parts of the 1787 document, by restoring the original understanding of that document. The recognition of our natural rights defines legitimate government. Now we can see that a republican form of government means equality for all men. In America, slavery and republicanism are incompatible. None of the Reconstruction Amendments changed the original understanding of republican government, writes Thomas. Its a statement that reminds us of what one thinker called the invisible slave in constitutional interpretation. As an example, consider the Courts reliance on dubious social science in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which was driven by the Courts need to avoid the real issue of slavery and its badges and incidents. This habit of obfuscation underscores the importance of the minority opinion from 1896 that referred to the Republican Government Guarantee Clause. Justice Harlans colorblind-Constitution dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson concluded: Such a system [of racial segregation] is inconsistent with the guarantee given by the Constitution to each State of a republican form of government, and may be stricken down by Congressional action, or by the courts in the discharge of their solemn duty to maintain the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. In writing to stop an unwarranted use of the Equal Protection Clause, Thomas is attempting to fulfill Harlans spirited defense of equal liberty. In his various opinionsconcurring, dissenting, and occasionally even for the CourtClarence Thomas has cut through the accretions of scores of years of misinterpretations in all the major areas of constitutional interpretation, including religious liberty, free speech, separation of powers, and federalism. One could say his jurisprudence is result-orientedthat is, oriented toward protecting the ends that the Declaration of Independence demands through the Constitution, a republican government that protects safety and happiness. Ken Masugi Ken Masugi is a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute. He teaches in graduate programs in political science for Johns Hopkins University and for the Ashbrook Center of Ashland University. He has edited Interpreting Tocquevilles Democracy in America, co-edited The Progressive Revolution in Politics and Political Science, and co-authored and co-edited several other books on American politics and political thought. In addition, he has worked ten years in the federal government as a speechwriter and on policy issues, at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where he was a special assistant to Chairman Clarence Thomas, and the Departments of Justice and Labor.Disponivel em: <http://www.libertylawsite.org/2016/04/14/justice-thomas-mr-republican/>. Acesso em: 15 abr. 2016.