Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/65

Rh Would they not purchase accomplices and protectors with others? and would not this unjust mode of taking away lands, presently generate a centre of power and interest, infinitely more oppressive than Turgot's centre, so justly censured by Mr. Adams ?

If the system of paper and patronage has made any impression upon the English theory, it behoved Mr. Adams accurately to have explained this impression, before he made use of that theory in his defence of the American constitutions. Without this explanation, we are at a loss to know whether the object of his reference and admiration is the ancient theory or modern practice : Whether it is the king, lords and commons of the fourteenth or of the eighteenth century.

Had this explanation appeared, his arguments would have been better understood, and the practicability of his system more easily estimated; nor could he possibly have escaped some coincidence of opinion with the principles of this essay, except by proving that the system of paper and patronage had made no impression on the English theory. Otherwise, by applauding the old theory, he must have coincided in a disapprobation of the new system of paper and patronage, because it corrupts this old theory; or if he applauded the new system, he must have condemned the old theory destroyed by it. He could not have justified the new system of paper and patronage, without surrendering his idea of checks and balances, or discovering checks and balances in this new system.

The checks and balances of the old English theory and the new English system, seem to have little or no relation to each other. The former consisted of king, lords and commons. The two first were weights, by reason of domains, manors, prerogatives and tenures; the last, from the confidence of the people attracted by responsibility. These weights or checks and balances, no longer exist. Bidders for loans and dealers in omnium, constitute the most ponderous weight next to the king, and the vibrations of stock