Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/125

Rh haken together in one bottle, and left in repoe; the firt will rie to the top, the lat ink to the bottom, and the econd wim between.

Our countrymen will never run delirious after a word or a name. The name republic is given to things, in their nature as different and contradictory as light and darknes, truth and falehood, virtue and vice, happines and miery. There are free republics, and republics as tyrannical as an oriental depotim. A free republic is the bet of governments, and the greatet bleing which mortals can apire to. Republics which are not free, by the help of a multitude of rigorous checks, in very mall tates, and for hort paces of time, have preerved ome reverence for the laws, and been tolerable; but there have been oligarchies carried to uch extremes of tyranny, that the depotim of Turkey, as far as the happines of the nation at large is concerned, would perhaps be preferable. An empire of laws is a characteritic of a free republic only, and hould never be applied to republics in general. If there hould ever be a people in Poland, there will oon be a real king; and if ever there hould be a king in reality, as well as in name, there will oon be a people: for, intead of the trite aying, "no bihop, no king," it would be much more exact and important truth to ay, no people, no king, and no king, no people, meaning by the word king, a firt magitrate poeed excluively of the executive power. It may be laid down as a univeral maxim, that every government that has not three independent branches in its legilature will oon become an abolute monarchy; or, an arrogant nobility, increaing every day in a rage for plendor and magnificence, will annihilate the people, and, attended with their