Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/26

16 more? Whilst he passes over ia silence the aristocracy of paper and patronage, more numerous, more burdensome, unexposed to public jealousy by the badge of title, and not too honorable or high spirited to use and serve executive power, for the sake of pillaging the people. Are these odious vices, to be concealed under apprehensions of ancient aristocracies, which, however natural, are supplanted by this modern one?

This subject will hereafter be resumed, as possessing in every view, a degree of importance, beyond any political question at this era affecting the happiness of mankind. Then having previously attempted to prove, that even the titled aristocracy of England, is no longer an order, requiting the combined efforts of a king and a people to curb; I shall proceed to shew, that a new political feature has appeared among men, for which Mr. Adams's system does not provide; and that England itself cannot now furnish materials for a government conformable to her theory, because her theory was calculated for a nation less advanced in the division of knowledge and land, and in the arts of patronage and paper. Now we will return to the subject of a natural aristocracy.

Mr. Adams, with particular approbation, uses the Spartan government, as an illustration of his hypothesis. The wisdom of Lycurgus, he observes, was evinced by a mixture of monarchical, aristocratical, and democratieal principles; and the prudent manner in which he adjusted them, appeared by its continuance for eight hundred years. Conceding the Spartan experiment to be a correct emblem of the system it is used to exemplify, it is only important to be understood, for the sake of beholding in fact, the results to he expected from this system itself.

The kings of Sparta held a relation to the Spartans or nobles, somewhat similar to that existing between the king, and what is called "the monied interest" in England. No vestige of a democratical balance was discernible during the operation of this admired mixture. On the contrary.