Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/147

Rh wealth, knowledge, fame, wit, temperance, contancy, and widom? Was there, or will there ever be, a nation, whoe individuals were all equal, in natural and acquired qualities, in virtues, talents, and riches? The anwer, of all mankind mut be in the negative.—It mut then be acknowledged, that in every tate, in the Maachuet's for example, there are inequalities which God and nature have planted there, and which no human legilator ever can eradicate. I hould have choen to have mentioned Virginia, as the mot ancient tate, or indeed any other in the union, rather than the one that gave me birth, if I were not afraid, of putting uppoitions, which may give offence, a liberty which my neighbours will pardon: yet I hall ay nothing that is not applicable to all the other twelve.

In this ociety of Maachuettenions then, there is, it is true, a moral and political equality of rights and duties among all the individuals, and as yet no appearance of artificial inequalities of condition, uch as hereditary dignities, titles, magitracies, or legal ditinctions; and no etablifhed marks, as tars, garters, croes or ribbons: there are, nevertheles, inequalities of great moment in the conideration of a legilator, becaue they have a natural and inevitable influence in ociety. Let us enumerate ome of them: 1. There is an inequality of wealth: ome individuals, whether by decent from their ancetors, or from greater kill, indutry, and ucces in buines, have etates both in lands and goods of great value; others have no property at all; and all the ret of the ociety, much the greater number, are poeed of wealth, in all the variety of degrees, between thee extremes: it will eaily be conceived, that all the rich men will have many of