Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/135

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My dear Sir,

HE authority of legilators and philoophers, in upport of the ytem we contend for, is not difficult to find. The greatet lights of humanity, ancient and modern, have approved it, which renders it difficult to explain how it comes, in this enlightened age, to be called in quetion, as it certainly has been, by others as well as Mr. Turgot. I hall begin with one, who, though eldom quoted as a legilator, appears to have conidercd this ubject, and furnihed arguments enough, for ever to determine the quetion. Dr. Swift, in his Contets and Dienions between the Nobles and Commons of Athens and Rome, oberves, that the bet legilators of all ages agree in this, that the abolute power, which originally is in the whole body, is a trut too great to be committed to any one man or aembly; and therefore, in their everal intitutions of government, power in the lat reort, was always placed by them in balance, among the one, the few, and the many; and it will be an eternal rule in politics, among every free people, that there is a balance of power to be held by every tate within itelf. A mixed government, partaking cf the known forms received in the chools