Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/444

434 lies between the preservation of this principle, and a painful travail, through the organ of orders, to one of the principles it generates.

Because certain publick functionaries, convene in different chambers, or are invested with different powers, for the purpose of preserving the principle of national self government, Mr. Adams concludes that we originally adopted a very different one. An errour, which forcibly displays the power of opinion over maxim and precept. Self government, a maxim of nature, and a precept of our constitutions, has seen opinion, under her banner, bringing up the troops of contrary principles, to effect her destruction; whilst she was told to her face, that she did not exist, and could only be created by a balance of power among three orders. When she sees an ambitious and mercenary army, possessing the exclusive military power of a nation, converted into patriots by metaphysical lines, for dividing it into three detachments; then let her believe, that three orders, exclusively possessing civil power, may also become subordinate to national will.

Unity, harmony and proportion, are as necessary in politicks, as in the drama, musick or architecture. A tragicomical government, a Corinthian capital over a Dorick column, jarring dissonances mingled with soft notes, an aristocratiek democracy or a monarchick aristocracy, destroy sympathies, proportions and melody. It is consistency which produces perfection in arts and sciences. Let us proceed to inquire, whether it is to be found in either of the two rival systems we have frequently compared. And first, we will look into that composed of orders.

It charges human nature with an insubordinate mass of evil propensities; thence it infers a necessity for vast power to curb them; and it bestows this vast power upon human nature. Great power often corrupts virtue; it invariably renders vice more malignant. Is human nature made worse, a good corrector of human nature? Is vice cured by the strongest temptations? History every where contri-