Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/437

Rh pear to have been enemies to the people in all ages, still they might be an alleviation of the superlative enmity.

This idea of justifying a system upon the argument of a natural self enmity in man, is as strange as that of producing unity of interest by division. The surprise it excites, is not diminished, by supposing that the enmity meant by Mr. Adams, was the result of errour er ignorance. In the present state of mankind, no arrangement of orders, could produce a freedom from errour, or an exclusiveness of knowledge. The aristocratick order, therefore, whether this enmity is deduced from a supposed self hatred in human nature, from errour or from ignorance, would as probably constitute "the worst enemies to themselves," as the popular; and hence this argument against one order, applies with equal force against another. The application theoretically is equal, but practically unequal. If the calamities aristocracy has drawn upon itself in all ages, by crimes and vices, have been more voluntary than the sufferings of the people, this order is more justly chargeable with self enmity.

The mode by which Mr. Adams provides against this self enmity in the people, is no less pleasant and paradoxical than the enmity itself, or the idea of uniting a nation by dividing it into orders. Having contended for a natural aristocracy, as strenuously as old Filmer (whose notions Mr. Adams calls superstitious and absurd) did for natural or divine kings, but being unable to say "lo! it is here, or lo! it is there," he is at length obliged to have recourse to a convention, to come, artificially, at a natural aristocracy. He draws a vail over the self hatred, fully or ignorance of the people, (whichever he means) and allows them self love and wisdom for one occasion only, provided that occasion be an establishment of his system of orders. After which, self love, wisdom and capacity to take care of themselves, are, like the bones of Lycurgus, to be considered as lost for ever; and as nature has decreed that they cannot be recovered, the system of orders is ingeniously furnished