Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/99

Rh begotten by the predominance of one order or of one power.

Mr. Turgot's errour in supposing our constitutions to have been formed by the English model, and his condemnation of such an imitation, afforded an opportunity precisely fitted for Mr. Adams's purpose. He assumes our defence against the condemnation, and assails Mr. Turgot's preference for collecting all authority into one centre. In justifying us against Turgot's condemnation for having copied the English system, it was incumbent on Mr. Adams to prove that system to be the most perfect model of civil policy; in endeavouring to effect this, he was enabled to make some use of our prepossessions, by scattering in his first volume a few compliments to our constitutions; these however are bestowed upon them as copies, but like copies, they are presently forgotten in the admiration excited by the original.

Turgot condemns a balance of power, and different orders of men, and approves of collecting all authority into one centre, the nation. Mr. Adams tacitly admits our constitutions to be artificers of this balance and these orders, converts Turgot's centre into a single chamber of representatives, engages these phantoms in hostility, and astound us with history, anecdote, poetry and fable, to prove—what? That Mr. Turgot was mistaken in supposing that these were political orders created by our constitutions? No. To prove that such orders naturally existed, and that no good government could be formed, except by balancing power among such orders.

Whether Mr. Turgot approves or not, of concentrating all power in a single house of representatives, is immaterial; except that Mr. Adams, by supposing him to do so, has very artificially interwoven, an assault upon that idea, a vindication of a mixed or limited monarchy, and a few slight compliments to our constitutions. He uses the constitutions as a weak ally in carrying on the war against Turgot's centre of power, places the system of limited monarchy in