Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/204

194 for another. Monarchical powers can only be assuaged by an aristocratical order. Were the former given to the president, to create a cause for the latter? The alternative for the United States is obvious; it is, either to pare away executive power, below monarchy, to a standard not requiring an aristocratical order to check it, or to adopt Mr. Adams's system of orders. Monarchical executive powers being monarchy in substance, will beget aristocracy, just as a system of paper and patronage, being aristocracy in substance, will beget monarchy. According to Mr. Adams's system, monarchy ought to produce aristocracy, and aristocracy monarchy. The presidency, gilded with kingly powers, has been tossed into the constitution, against the publick sentiment, and gravely bound in didactick fetters, like those which in England and France have become political old junk. Between these, and our principle of self government, there can neither be friendship nor compromise. Either our kingly powers, or the sovereignty of the people, arc by the laws of nature destined to perish in their warfare. The first will be suppressed by amendments to the constitution, or the last, lulled by the narcotick, corruption, will be murdered in its sleep.

The people and the legislative bodies of the United States shrink from this honest confession, whilst they are making it in their actions. They will not see the monarchy they court, and expect safety whilst feeding an enemy, from denying his existence; whilst even the European habit, of referring every thing to executive power, prevails. Epochs and measures are ascribed to presidents. Legislative power solicits a state of degradution, by descending to the indignity of pleading a subserviency to them, as a passport to popular favour, and condescending to become the satellite of one mail. State legislatures, parties and individuals, enlist under candidates for the presidency, as they do in England under candidates for the ministry; and the nation itself, forgetting their representatives, contemplates the dazzling executive power of their own creation. The