by John Adams

“ Yet enough appears to show incontestably that San Marino is by no means a perfect democracy. It is a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, as really as Sparta and Rome were, and as the Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland now are, in which the powers of the governor, senate, and assembly are more exactly ascertained and nicely balanced; but they are not more distinct than those of the capitaneos, council of forty, and the arengo are in San Marino.
Should it be argued, that a government like this, where the sovereignty resides in the whole body of the people, is a democracy ”

“ The city, moreover, has its chief, its council, and its officers apart, and every one of the other quarters has the same.
It is a total misapplication of words to call this government a simple democracy; for, although the people are accounted for something, and indeed for more than in most other free governments; in other words, although it is a free republic, it is rather a confederation of four or five republics, each of which has its monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical branches, than a simple democracy. ”

“ It would be very surprising if, among all the nations that have existed, not one has discovered a secret of so much importance. It is not necessary for us to prove that no such government has existed; it is incumbent on him who shall embrace the opinion of M. Turgot, to name the age, the country, and the people in which such an experiment has been tried. It might be easier to determine the question concerning the practicability or impracticability, the utility or inutility of a simple democracy, if we could find a number of examples of it. ”

“ He assumes, as a rule of judging the nature of a government, the extent to which the sovereign power is exclusively reserved or generally distributed. Thus, his idea of a pure democracy is the sway of numbers acting directly upon every subject involving the common interest of a community. This is the only case in which the sovereignty is completely reserved to the people. Such a simple democracy he maintains to be impracticable ”

“ The government here is by no means entirely democratical. It is true, that the sovereign is the whole country, and the sovereignty resides in the general assembly, where each male of sixteen, with his sword at his side, has his seat and vote. It is true that this assembly, which is annually held in an open plain, ratifies the laws, lays taxes, enters into alliances, declares war, and makes peace. ”

“ The liberty and the honesty of these people is not at all surprising. In so small a state, where every man personally knows every other, let the form of government be what it will, it is scarcely possible that any thing like tyranny or cruelty can take place. A king, or a decemvirate, intrusted with the government, would feel the censures of the people, and be constantly conscious of the facility of assembling the whole, and apprehensive of an exertion of their strength.
The poverty of this people appears, by the fine of one penny imposed upon absence from the arengo ”

“ In truth, if a judgment were to be made of forms solely from their outward show, the most complete democracy among the Swiss republics would not seem to be Glarus. The reduction of power to its first elements, the township or local community, is carried further in the Grisons than anywhere else. The principle of representation is not acknowledged; inasmuch as every delegate to the diet is denied the right of exercising the smallest discretion, and is bound to act in every instance as the instructed agent of his employers. The age at which men vote is regulated in each community. ”

“ There is nothing in appearance so democratic as this in any form adopted in the United States. Yet it is admitted that the practical working of the system is somewhat aristocratic. From whence it may be observed, that those who look at the mere theory of any government, without paying close attention to the modes of thought, the feelings, the manners, and the customs of a community, which do much the most to determine its character, will always be liable to commit great mistakes. ”

“ Some writers are of opinion that Switzerland was originally peopled by a colony of Greeks. The same greatness of soul, the same spirit of independence, the same love of country, has animated both the ancients and the moderns to that determined heroism which prefers death to slavery. ”

“ IN a research like this, after those people in Europe who have had the skill, courage, and fortune to preserve a voice in the government, Biscay, in Spain, ought by no means to be omitted. While their neighbors have long since resigned all their pretensions into the hands of kings and priests, this extraordinary people have preserved their ancient language, genius, laws, government, and manners, without innovation, longer than any other nation of Europe. ”

“ Such will ever be the character of a people, who preserve so large a share to themselves in their legislature, while they temper their constitution at the same time with an executive power in a chief magistrate, and an aristocratical power in a wise senate. ”

“ Active, vigilant, generous, brave, hardy, inclined to war and navigation, they have enjoyed, for two thousand years, the reputation of being the best soldiers and sailors in Spain, and even the best courtiers, many of them having, by their wit and manners, raised themselves into offices of consequence under the court of Madrid. Their valuable qualities have recommended them to the esteem of the kings of Spain, who have hitherto left them in possession of those great immunities of which they are so jealous. ”

“ In America, the right of sovereignty resides indisputably in the body of the people, and they have the whole property of land. There are no nobles or patricians; all are equal by law and by birth. The governors and senates, as well as representative assemblies, to whom the exercise of sovereignty is committed, are annually chosen. ”

“ Power may, however, be distributed in two separate forms; one, that of mere delegation, where all discretion is reserved from the agent employed to do certain specific and commanded acts; the other, that of representation, in which a general trust is conferred to act for the best interests of those represented. It is the presence of the last form which makes the characteristic feature of a republic. In the United States much confusion of ideas prevails on this subject, which is the origin of a good deal of the party violence of the times. ”

“ If the various councils, committees, corporations, and officers, established for the public, or any particular service in subordinancy to the sovereign, are considered as checks to, or making a part of it, there is no such government in the world as pure monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, for there are councils, committees, &c. ”

“ The Land-Amman, statthalter, proconsul, or senate, is no part of the sovereignty in any of the Swiss cantons. They are not properly called the government, but are rather the administrators of government in the executive and judicial departments. Their powers are derived from the democratical part, and are subordinate to that part which is the sovereign alone, without any mixture, it should seem, of monarchy or aristocracy ”

“ He assumes, as a basis, a proposition wholly at variance with that adopted at the outset of this work, and which would change the classification made of forms of government. It is not, and cannot be, from the mere formation of the sovereignty that a judgment can be made of the nature of a system; inasmuch as such a rule would resolve all governments derived from the popular will into simple democracies, no matter how much the powers may have been distributed. ”

“ They must be natives and residents, worth a thousand ducats, and must have no concern in commerce, manufactures, or trades; and, by a fundamental agreement among all the merindades, all their deputies to the junta general, and all their regidores, syndics, secretaries, and treasurers, must be nobles, at least knights, and such as never exercised any mechanical trades, themselves or their fathers. Thus we see the people themselves have established by law a contracted aristocracy, under the appearance of a liberal democracy. ”

“ Corruption and influence are not in any national parliament more conspicuous than in the diet of the Grisons. For although, in general, those deputies, annually chosen by every male of a stated age, are subject to be controlled in their votes by written orders from their constituents, yet they frequently contrive to elude this restriction. ”

“ This is the account of San Marino. Yet, if all authority is here collected in one centre, that centre is not the nation. Although the original representation in the arengo was of houses, that is to say, of property, rather than of the persons of the citizens, and, consequently, was not very equal, since it excluded all personal property, as well as all who had no property; yet even such an agrarian, it seems, was not a sufficient check to licentiousness, and they found it necessary to institute a senate of forty men. Here, at least, commenced as complete an aristocracy as that of ancient Rome ”

“ In the upper canton—the general assembly elects all the chief officers of the state by hand vote. It also chooses the deputy to the diet.
The council is composed of the chief officers and of sixty-five members chosen in the respective parishes, by hand vote. A father and a son cannot sit at the same time, nor two brothers.
The chief Land-Amman is chosen every year. The treasurer and inspector may be reelected. Some of the chief officers, however, serve for life. ”

“ The council of Glarus published, in 1816, a memorial relating to the government of the canton, of which the following is an extract:—
"We have never had any constitutional form for the canton drawn up in authentic shape. The custom of successive construction, followed for centuries, and the acts of agreement established between the two religious divisions, have gradually given birth to the constitution actually in being, and which, under divine providence, we desire to transmit unchanged to our descendants." ”

“ The inhabitants live together in a general equality and most perfect harmony, even those of the different persuasions of catholics and protestants, who sometimes perform divine service in the same church, one after the other; and all the offices of state are indifferently administered by both parties, though the protestants are more in number, and superior both in industry and commerce. All the houses are built of wood, large and solid, those of the richest inhabitants differing only from those of the poorer, as they are larger. ”

“ Even in this happy country, where there is more equality than in almost any other, there are noble families, who, although they live like their neighbors by the cultivation of the earth, and think it no disgrace, are very proud of the immense antiquity of their descent, and boast of it, and value themselves upon it as much as Julius Caesar did, who "was descended from a goddess." ”

“ His statue stands over the high altar, with the figure of a mountain crowned with three castles in his hands, which is likewise the arms of the commonwealth. The citizens attribute to his protection the long duration of the state, and look on him as the greatest saint, next to the blessèd Virgin. In their statute-book is a law against such as speak disrespectfully of him, who are to be punished in the same manner as those convicted of blasphemy. This petty republic has lasted thirteen hundred years, while all the other states of Italy have several times changed masters and forms of government. ”

“ As a consequence, the next step in his chain of reasoning, and one which his commentator appears to overlook, is, that the devolution of power to any man or body of men, Laving a recognized, independent, continuous existence for any period of time, is inconsistent with the idea of a simple democracy. "A simple democracy by representation," he says, "is a contradiction in terms." ”

“ They always knew, that as soon as they should fall into factions, or attempt innovations, the court of Spain would interpose, and prescribe them a government not so much to their taste.
Switzerland
IT is commonly said, that some of the cantons of Switzerland are democratical, and others aristocratical; and if these epithets are understood only to mean that one of these powers prevails in some of those republics, and the other in the rest, they are just enough; but there is neither a simple democracy, nor a simple aristocracy among them. ”

“ The people are laborious and frugal, and have no commerce but in cattle, hides, butter, cheese, and a little linen made of their own flax. It has no walled towns, and only two or three open boroughs and a few small villages; it is, like New England, almost a continued village, covered with excellent houses of the yeomanry, built of wood, each of which has its territory of pasture-grounds, commonly ornamented with trees; neatness and convenience are studied without, and a remarkable cleanliness within. ”

“ The government resides sovereignly in the communities, where every thing is decided by the plurality of voices. These elect and instruct their deputies for the general diet, which is held once a year. Each league elects also its chief or president, who presides at the diets, each one in his league. The general diet assembles one year at Ilanz, in the league of the Grisons ”

“ If they err in their counsels, it is an error of the judgment, and not of the heart. As there is no fear of invasion, and they have no conquests to make, their policy consists in maintaining their independence and preserving the public tranquillity. ”