The Dorr Rebellion and the Supreme Court:  Luther v. Borden (1849)

 The Rebellion reverberated across the country.  Some national leaders, especially Democrats (even the aging Andrew Jackson) went on the record to support Dorr, although many stopped short of endorsing the resort to force.  Whigs, including Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams, and New York Governor William Seward, generally supported the “Charterites.”

One event in the Rebellion triggered a Constitutional controversy.  In the spring of 1842, militia of the Charter government, led by Luther Borden, attempted to arrest Martin Luther, a Warren shoemaker and leader of the Rebellion.  Failing to find him, they settled for ransacking his house.  Martin Luther sued in federal court, charging the militia with trespassing and claiming that the Charter government, selected by severely limited suffrage, violated Article 4 of the Constitution (“the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”).  The Supreme Court declined to rule, declaring it an essentially political question that had to be decided by the President and Congress.

The issue came up again after the Civil War, during Reconstruction, when the 14^th Amendment (1868), which included an Equal Protection Clause for all citizens, was added to the Constitution.  This formed the basis for decisions such as Baker v. Carr (1962) and subsequent apportionment decisions aimed at guaranteeing citizens “due process” and “equal protection of the laws.”

In Rhode Island, as historian William McLoughlin notes, “Not until 1928 did naturalized citizens get full political equality; not till 1935 did the urban areas gain power over the rural areas; not till 1966 did the principle of one man, one vote prevail in Rhode Island.” (McLoughlin, Rhode Island: A History, p. 136.)