Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/32

22 danger of war, could only defend the bitter precaution of a standing army.

Reader, pause, and recollect several of the ingredients compounding aristocracy, in the opinion of Mr. Adams. Do you behold them in the English peerage? Do you behold an exclusive mass of virtue, almost inducing you to exclaim "these are the sons of the Gods?" Do you behold an exclusive mass of talents, compelling you to acknowledge "that these are sages qualified to govern?" Do you behold an exclusive mass of wealth, purchasing and converting into armies, clients and followers ? Or do you behold a band of warriors inured to hardships, skilled in war, and inspiring fear and love? Truth compels you to acknowledge, that you cannot discern a solitary particle of these qualities, so essential to aristocracy according to Mr. Adams. And will you, against an acknowledgment which you cannot withhold, concur with Mr. Adams in believing, that such a body of men as the English nobility, ought to be placed in a legislative branch, that it may be guarded by a king and a house of commons?

Place the democracy of England on one side, and the nobility on the other; engage them in hostilities, and view the combat. Let the warfare be moral or physical. Still the combat would be like that between the universe and an atom. The king, without his aristocracy of the third age, would be but a feather on either side. This fact was experimentally settled in France. The French nobility civil and hierarchical, were more numerous, and exceeded the English in every aristocratical ingredient mentioned by Mr. Adams; yet with the king at its head, it was hardly felt as a power by the democracy, and would not have been felt, except for the combination of kingdoms by which it was aided. Is there then any real cause of apprehension in the fallen peerage of England?

Suppose the people of England should attempt to abolish monarchy. Both the aristocracy of the present age, and the nobility would arrange themselves in its defence.