Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/28

18 his aristocracy, to be regulated by the efforts of the Heathen Gods or of nature; but neither the oracle, the Gods, or nature could keep it alive. It became naturally extinct before the artificial cords of superstition, which bound its victims to obedience, were bro' en.

Nor is duration, evidence of political perfection. Such an argument includes with equal complacency, the despotisms of the Ronjan Empire, of China, of France and of Turkey; the arrstocracy of Venice, and the hierarchies of Judea and modern Rome.

The aristocracy of Sparta owed its origin to an oracle, that of Rome, to a king. Whilst we see Lycurgus, of the royal family and near the throne, and Romulus, himself a king, creating an aristocracy in antient times; and modern kings, almost universally doing the same thing; it suggests a doubt, whether kings and noble orders, are really the enemies and rivals of each other; and it is a doubt of importance, because the single effect beneficial to a nation, expected by Mr. Adams himself from his system,^ is, that its king will defend the people against its nobility.

It is admitted that patricians and barons have destroyed kings, and disclosed an enmity to royalty. It is equally true, that aristocratical orders are at this day their friends and instruments. A correct theory could only be formed upon an estimate of both facts; Mr. Adams endeavours to establish his upon one. Annies have frequently exhibited an enmity to generals and king; ought armies there- fore to be considered as checks upon their ambition, and balances of their power?

By comparing the causes of the antient enmity with those of the modern affection of noble orders for royalty, we obtain a result, accounting for these phenomena, fatal to Mt Adams's theory.

Clientage, clanship, and feudality, have sown various countries with petty kings, under various titles, and these have been inspired with enmity to a great king, and a great king with an enmity to these, by a mutual Interest to annoy