In Minor v. Happersett15 the point was raised that a state government is not republican in form in which adult women are not permitted to vote. As to this the court said: "The guaranty is of a republican form of government. No particular government is designated as republican, neither is the exact form to be guaranteed, in any manner especially designated. Here, as in other parts of the instrument, we are compelled to resort elsewhere to ascertain what was intended. The guaranty necessarily implies a duty on the part of the States themselves to provide such a government. All the States had governments when the Constitution was adopted. In all the people participated to some extent, through their representatives elected in the manner specially provided. These governments the Constitution did not change. They were accepted precisely as they were, and it is, therefore, to be presumed that they were such as it was the duty of the States to provide. Thus we have unmistakable evidence of what was republican in form, within the meaning of that term as employed in the Constitution. As has been seen [in the argument that has gone before], all the citizens of the States were not invested with the right of suffrage. In all, save perhaps New Jersey, this right was only bestowed upon men and not upon all of them. Under these circumstances it is certainly now too late to contend that a government is not republican, within the meaning of this guaranty in the Constitution, because women are not made voters."16

15 21 Wall. 162; 22 L. ed. 627.

Precedents have established the principle that where there is a dispute in a State as to the de jure character of a particular organ of its government, as, for example, as to which of two individuals has been elected as chief executive, or which of two courts or legislatures is entitled to authority, the Federal Government will not ordinarily interfere, being governed by the principle that each state government has a tribunal for the decision of such contests, and that the General Government will consider itself bound by the decision which that tribunal renders, Just as the federal courts hold themselves bound by the decisions of the state courts as to the existence and, in general, the interpretation of their respective state statutes.17

In two classes of cases, however, the Federal Government exercises the right to decide which of two contesting state officials or organs is to be recognized as the de jure authority. The first of these includes those cases in which a decision becomes necessary in order to determine a matter of direct federal concern. Thus, for example, when each of two contesting state legislatures select and send senators to Congress, it is necessary for the United States Senate to decide which of the two electing bodies is endowed with the authority to act on that behalf for the State. So, also, as in the case of Dorr's Rebellion, where federal aid is needed to suppress domestic disorder, it is necessary for the President or Congress to determine which government, claiming authority, it will recognize.

16 In this ease was also negatived the assertion that to deny women the suffrage is to deprive them of a right guaranted to them by the Fourteenth Amendment.

17 See post. Chapter LII (The Law Administered By Federal Courts. 588. Federal Courts And International Law).

The second class of cases in which the Federal Government, through its Supreme Court, will assume jurisdiction where there is dispute between parties as to who is entitled to a state office, include those in which there is a question whether the state laws, as applied by the state authorities, have violated that provision of the Fourteenth Amendment which declares that no State "shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," or have violated the tenth section of Article One of the Constitution of the United States, which declares that no State shall pass a law impairing the obligation of a contract.