Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/203

Rh affairs. For seven centuries Rome applied the principle of rotation to her generals, and conquered; for five, she trusted to experience, and was subdued. The rotary generals and statesmen of the little Athenian republick, destined it to live for ever in the annals of fame, and most of if s contemporary governments are for ever dead. As to civil affairs, the claim of experience would probably be answered by the old adage, but the burst of talents in both cases "which blazes forth whenever the monopoly of experience is destroyed by rotation, is accounted for by the fall of the monopoly. The trade being laid open, the wares increase, and are made better by competition. Talents, civil and military, are created by the prospect of employment, and smothered by the monopoly of experience.

A strong and independent executive power, has only been contended for by Mr. Adams and political writers, as a counterpoising weight in the system of balancing orders. There being no orders in the system of the United States, the only reason for a strong executive, doe^ not exist; and a conformity in that department to the theory of a sovereignty of orders, unquestionably proved by Mr. Adams, unquestionably also discloses its nonconformity, to the theory of a sovereignty of the people. A strong executive is the more dangerous, where there is no political order to balance it. By creating an executive with monarchical powers, without the check of an aristocratical order, this monarchical order, is either enabled to assail the liberties of the nation, or the nation are driven to erect an aristocratical order to balance it. The proof of this remark exists, in the ease with which an elective executive in France, with monarchical powers, unchecked by an aristocratical order, has made itself despotick. And Mr. Adams both strenuously urges the necessity of an aristocratical order to balance monarchical powers, and plainly intimates that we shall be speedily compelled, first to extend the term of delegation, and then to adopt the hereditary principle. It is admitted, that the existence of one order, furnishes a reason