Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/12

iv towards the annihilation of corruption. The modern aritocracies of Holland, Venice, Berne, &c. have tempered themelves with innumerable multitudes of checks, by which they have given a great degree of tability to that form of government: and though liberty and life can never be there enjoyed so well as in a free republic, none is perhaps more capable of profound agacity. We hall learn to prize the checks and balances of a free government, and even thoe of the modern aritocracies, if we recollect the mieries of Greece which aroe from their ignorance of them. The only balance attempted againt the ancient kings was a body of nobles; and the conequences were perpetual altercations of rebellion and tyranny, and butcheries of thouands upon every revolution from one to the other. When the kings were abolihed, the aritocracies tyrannized; and then no balance was attempted but between aritocracy and democracy. This, in the nature of things, could be no balance at all, and therefore the pendulum was for ever on the wing. It is impoible to read in Thucidydes, lib. iii. his account of the factions and confuions throughout all Greece, which were introduced by this want of an equilibrium, without horror. During the few days that Eurymedon, with his troops, continued at Corcyra, the people of that city extended the maacre to all whom they judged their enemies. The crime alleged was, their attempt to overturn the democracy. Some perihed merely through