Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/68

58 by Mr. Adams, must have arisen from a comparison of the Spartan, not with the present English government, because between these there is no resemblance, but with that which was compounded of an hierarchy rendered powerful by superstition, of an honest legislature, and of a frugal, warlike and hardy nobility, able to control and punish kings.

By classing the English with the Spartan, and other mixed forms of government, it is obvious that Mr. Adams, throughout his book, has only considered that era of the English government, in which its form had some resemblance to the ancient governments with which he compares it; and that he has wholly omitted to consider the present English aristocracy of paper and patronage, or the present English government; since that, neither in its causes or effects, has any resemblance to a single ancient form of government, from which Mr. Adams has drawn his illustrations.

Throughout his system, Mr. Adams deduces his aristocracy from oracles, a supposed descent from the Gods, or a superiority of virtue and talents; and his essential effort is to ascertain the best mode of checking it. These are the aristocracies of the fir*st and second ages; and if his mode of checking them is well contrived, it might have been useful to Lycurgus and Solon, to the Italian republicks, and to nations of the ancient and middle ages. But would it therefore follow, that the same check or balance will secure the liberty of nations against the modern mode of invading it. Will his system check corruption, restrain patronage, control armies, and limit the draughts of avarice upon national wealth and labour? Behold England, if his system exists there, and answer the question. If it does not exist there, it follows, that Mr. Adams's system is irrelative to the existing case, or to the subject which he professed to consider, and which I profess to consider; namely, the nature of the existing American and English forms of government. In drawing his comparison, Mr. Adams refers to a landed aristocracy; I refer to an aristocracy of paper and patron-