Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/164

154 reference to election and representation for obtaining national will, in the momentous affair of changing the form of government, concedes, that it can be obtained in no other way. If election and representation exclusively merit national confidence, when the consignment of power is greatest, why are they to be distrusted in inferiour agencies?

"In 1789, »he admiration of Mr. Adams in contemplating the effects of our policy, broke forth with fervour and solemnity, in an inaugural address to the creatures of that policy; and therefore it is probable, that he had relinquished his wish to destroy it by a convention previously expressed. The following extract from that address is not printed at the end of his treatise. I should be destitute of sensibility, if upon my arrival in this city, and presentation to this legislature, and especially to this senate, I could see, without emotion, so many of those characters, of whose virtuous exertions I have so often been a witness—from whose countenances and examples I have ever derived encouragement and animation—whose disinterested friendship has supported me in many intricate conjunctures of publick affairs, at home and abroad: Those celebrated defenders of the liberties of this country, ''whom menaces could not intimidate, corruption seduce, nor flattery allure. Those intrepid assertors of the rights of mankind, whose philosophy and policy have enlightened the world, in twenty years, more than it was ever before enlightened in many centuries, by ancient schools, or modern universities."''

This eulogy is bestowed on our policy, as it had operated previously to the existence of the present general government, under the auspices of election and representation. It would be quite unphilosophical to assert, that Americans were insensible to the influence of intimidation, corruption and flattery; and therefore it must have been owing to our system of govern meat, that its agents were uninfluenced by these vices. This is conceivable, by recollecting that our principle of division prevented an accumulation of power,