by John Adams

“ If it be said that those governments in which the democratical part governs most, do more frequently err in the choice of men, or the means of preserving that purity of manners which is required for the well-being of a people, than those wherein aristocracy prevails, I confess it, and that in Rome and Athens, the best and wisest men did for the most part incline to aristocracy. ”

“ As for democracy, I believe it can suit only with the convenience of a small town, accompanied with such circumstances as are seldom found. But this no way obliges men to run into the other extreme, inasmuch as the variety of forms, between mere democracy and absolute monarchy, is almost infinite. And if I should undertake to say, there never was a good government in the world that did not consist of the three simple species of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, I think I might make it good. ”

“ As to popular government in the strictest sense, that is, pure democracy, where the people in themselves, and by themselves, perform all that belongs to government, I know of no such thing; and, if it be in the world, have nothing to say for it. ”

“ Forasmuch as he who wants bread, is his servant that will feed him; and if a man thus feeds a whole people, they are under his empire.” It already appears, that there must be in every society of men superiors and inferiors, because God has laid in the constitution and course of nature the foundations of the distinction. And, indeed, as Harrington says, “an army may as well consist of soldiers without officers, or of officers without soldiers, as a commonwealth consist of a people without a gentry, or of a gentry without a people.” ”

“ Machiavel, not perceiving that if a commonwealth be galled by the gentry, it is by their overbalance, speaks of the gentry as hostile to popular governments, and of popular governments as hostile to the gentry; which can never be proved by any one example, unless in civil war; seeing that, even in Switzerland, the gentry are not only safe, but in honor. ”

“ But an army is a beast that has a great belly, and must be fed; wherefore this will come to what pastures you have, and what pastures you have will come to the balance of property, without which the public sword is but a name. He that can graze this beast with the great belly, as the Turk does his timariots, may well deride him that imagines he received his power by covenant. But if the property of the nobility, stocked with their tenants and retainers, be the pasture of that beast, the ox knows his master’s crib ”

“ All government is of three kinds,—a government of servants, a government of subjects, or a government of citizens. The first is absolute monarchy, as that of Turkey; the second, aristocratical monarchy, as that of France; the third, a commonwealth, as Israel, Rome, Holland. Of these, the government of servants is harder to be conquered and the easier to be held. The government of subjects is the easier to be conquered and the harder to be held. The government of citizens is both the hardest to be conquered and the hardest to be held. ”

“ What a situation must the poor citizen be in under those poor republics! The same body of magistrates are possessed, as executors of the laws, of the whole power they have given themselves in quality of legislators. They may plunder the state by their general determinations; and, as they have likewise the judiciary power in their hands, every private citizen may be ruined by their particular decisions. The whole power is here united in one body ”

“ Some nations, not liking the name of king, have given such a power as kings enjoyed in other places to one or more magistrates, either limited to a certain time, or left to be perpetual, as best pleased themselves; others, approving the name, made the dignity purely elective. Some have in their elections principally regarded one family as long as it lasted; others considered nothing but the fitness of the person, and reserved to themselves a liberty of taking where they pleased. ”

“ This for aristocracy or mixed monarchy. But if the whole people be landlords, or hold the land so divided among them, that no one man or number of men, within the compass of the few or aristocracy overbalance them, it is a commonwealth. Such is the branch in the root, or the balance of property naturally producing empire. ”

“ In every government there are three sorts of power,—the legislative; the executive, in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive, in regard to things that depend on the civil law. ”

“ Commonwealths, upon which the city life has had the stronger influence, as Athens, have seldom or never been quiet; but, at the best are found to have injured their own business by overdoing it. Whence, the Urban tribes of Rome, consisting of the turba forensis, and libertins, that had received their freedom by manumission, were of no reputation in comparison of the rustics. A commonwealth, consisting of but one city, would doubtless be stormy, in regard that ambition would be every man’s trade ”

“ Where the nobility holds half the property, or about that proportion, and the people the other half, the shares of the land may be equal; but, in regard the nobility have much among few, and the people little among many, the few will not be contented to have authority, which is all their proper share in a commonwealth, but will be bringing the people under power, which is not their proper share in a commonwealth ”

“ A noble discovery, of which the honor solely belongs to him, as much as the circulation of the blood to Harvey, printing to Laurence Coster, or the invention of guns, compasses, or optic glasses to the several authors. If this balance is not the foundation of all politics, as Toland asserts, it is of so much importance, that no man can be thought a master of the subject, without having well weighed it. ”

“ Aristotle is full of this balance in divers places, especially where he says that immoderate wealth, as where one man, or the few, have greater possessions than the equality or the frame of the commonwealth will bear, is an occasion of sedition, which ends, for the greater part, in monarchy; and that, for this cause, the ostracism has been received in divers places, as in Argos and Athens; but that it were better to prevent the growth in the beginning, than, when it has got head, to seek the remedy of such an evil. ”

“ Others chose rather to be governed by a select number of such as most excelled in wisdom and virtue; and this, according to the signification of the word, was called aristocracy. When one man excelled all others, the government was put into his hands under the name of monarchy. ”

“ The political liberty of the citizen, is a tranquillity of mind, arising from the opinion each person has of his safety. In order to have this liberty, it is requisite the government be so constituted, as that one citizen need not be afraid of another citizen. ”

“ Some small numbers of men, living within the precincts of one city, have, as it were, cast into a common stock, the right which they had of governing themselves and children, and, by common consent, joining in one body, exercised such power over every single person as seemed beneficial to the whole; and this, men call perfect democracy. ”

“ According to some authors, there are but three sorts of government, namely,—monarchy or principality, aristocracy, and democracy; and that those who intend to erect a new state, must have recourse to some one of these which they like best. Others, and, as many think, with more judgment, say there are six sorts; three of which are very bad, and the other three good in themselves, but liable to be so corrupted that they may become the worst. ”

“ In America, the balance is nine tenths on the side of the people. Indeed, there is but one order; and our senators have influence chiefly by the principles of authority, and very little by those of power ”

“ But the balance, as I have laid it down, though unseen by Machiavel, is that which interprets him, where he concludes,—‘That he who will go about to make a commonwealth where there be many gentlemen, unless he first destroys them, undertakes an impossibility. And that he who goes about to introduce monarchy, where the condition of the people is equal, shall never bring it to pass, unless he cull out such of them as are the most turbulent and ambitious, and make them gentlemen or noblemen, not in name, but in effect ”

“ If the legislative leaves the executive power in possession of a right to imprison those subjects who can give security for their good behavior, there is an end of liberty; unless they are taken up in order to answer, without delay, to a capital crime ”

“ I rank knowledge among the goods of fortune, because it is the effect of education, study, and travel, which are either accidents, or usual effects of riches or birth, and is by no means necessarily connected with wisdom or virtue ”

“ I allow, indeed, that the mere hereditary aristocracy of the Italian republics does not answer exactly to the despotic power of the eastern princes. The number of magistrates sometimes softens the power of the magistracy; the whole body of the nobles do not always concur in the same designs ”

“ Riches will hold the first place, in civilized societies, at least, among the principles of power, and will often prevail, not only over all the principles of authority, but over all the advantages of birth, knowledge, and fame. ”

“ Most kingdoms in Europe enjoy a moderate government; because the prince who is invested with the two first powers, leaves the third to his subjects. In Turkey, where these three powers are united in the sultan’s person, the subjects groan under the weight of a most frightful oppression. In the republics of Italy, where these three powers are united, there is less liberty than in our monarchies. Hence their government is obliged to have recourse to as violent methods for its support as even that of the Turks ”

“ The cities of Ionia, Athens, and others, had an Archon, the Areopagi, &c., and all judgments concerning matters of the greatest importance, as well as the election of magistrates, were referred to the people. Rome, in the beginning, had a king and a senate, while the election of kings and judgments upon appeals remained in the people; afterwards, consuls representing kings and vested with equal power, a more numerous senate, and more frequent meetings of the people. Venice has at this day a duke, the senate of the pregadi, and the great assembly of the nobility, which is the whole city ”

“ The members, therefore, of the legislature should not be chosen from the general body of the nation; but it is proper that, in every considerable place, a representative should be elected by the inhabitants.
“The great advantage of representatives is, their being capable of discussing affairs; for this the people collectively are extremely unfit, which is one of the greatest inconveniences of a democracy. ”

“ Hence it is, that many of the princes of Europe, whose aim has been levelled at arbitrary power, have constantly set out with uniting in their own persons all the branches of magistracy, and all the great offices of state. ”

“ For when any one injured his benefactor, his ingratitude excited a sort of fellow-feeling and indignation in others, as well as kindness and respect for those that behaved differently; and, as they considered that they might, some time or other, perhaps, be treated in the same manner themselves, if proper measures were not taken to prevent it, they thought fit to make laws for the reward of good men, and the punishment of offenders. ”

“ If the few, or a nobility, or a nobility with a clergy, be landlords to such a proportion as overbalances the people in the like manner, they may make whom they please king; or, if they be not pleased with their king, down with him, and set up whom they like better ”

“ When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate, or the same senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
“Again, there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the citizens would be exposed to arbitrary control ”

“ But if our author there seek patrons for his absolute monarchy, he will find none but Phalaris, Agathocles, Dionysius, Catiline, Cethegus, Lentulus, with the corrupted crew of mercenary rascals who did, or endeavored to set them up; these are they, quibus ex honesto nulla est spes; they abhor the dominion of the law, because it curbs their vices, and make themselves subservient to the lusts of a man who may nourish them. ”

“ Wherefore, as in this place I agree with Machiavel, that a nobility or gentry overbalancing a popular government, is the utter bane and destruction of it, so I shall show in another, that a nobility or gentry, in a popular government, not overbalancing it, is the very life and soul of it.
“The public sword, or right of the militia, be the government what it will, or let it change how it can, is inseparable from the overbalance in dominion.
“The balance of dominion (4) in land is the natural cause of empire ”

“ The inhabitants of a particular town are much better acquainted with its wants and interests than with those of other places; and are better judges of the capacity of their neighbors than of that of the rest of their countrymen. ”

“ The republic of San Marino, next to that of Millingen in Switzerland, is the smallest republic in Europe. The limits of it extend no farther than the base of the mountain on which it is seated. Its insignificance is its security. ”