Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/131

Rh known in the world, will not be thought erroneous in appointing houes of repreentatives.

In every republic, in the mallet and mot popular, in the larger and more aritocratical, as well as in the larget and mot monarchical, we have oberved a multitude of curious and ingenious inventions to balance, in their turn, all thoe powers, to check the paions peculiar to them, and to controul them from ruhing into thoe exorbitancies to which they are mot addicted—the Americans will then be no longer cenured for endeavouring to introduce an equilibrium, which is much more profoundly meditated, and much more effectual for the protection of the laws, than any we have een, except in England:—we may even quetion whether that is an exception.

In every country we have found a variety of orders, with very great ditinctions. In America, there are different orders of offices, but none of men; out of office all men are of the ame pecies, and of one blood; there is neither a greater nor a leer nobility—Why then are they accued of etablihing different orders of men? To our inexpreible mortification we mut have remarked, that the people have preerved a hare of power, or an exitence in the government, in no country out of England, except upon the tops of a few inacceible mountains, among rocks and precipices, in territories o narrow that you may pan them with an hand's breadth, where, living unenvied, in extreme poverty, chiefly upon paturage, detitute of manufactures and commerce, they till exhibit the mot charming picture of life, and the mot dignified character of human nature. Wherever