Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/172

134 " make them good; for, if men were o of themelves, there would be no occaion for laws; but, as the cae is far otherwie, they are abolutely neceary. After the Tarquins were dead, who had been uch a check upon the nobility, ome other expedient was wanting to have the ame effect; o that, after much confuion and diorder, and many dangerous contets between the patricians and plebeians, certain officers, called tribunes, were created for the ecurity of the latter; who, being veted with uch privileges and authority as enabled them to become arbiters betwixt thoe two etates, effectually curbed the inolence of the former:" or, in the language of Dr. Franklin, the people inited upon hitching a yoke of cattle behind the waggon, to draw up hill, when the patricians before hould attempt to go too fat: or, in the tile of Harrington, the commons, finding the patricians dipoed to divide the cake unequally, demanded the privilege of chooing.

If Harrington's authority is not of great weight with ome men, the reaons he aigns in upport of his judgment are often eternal, and unanwerable by any man. In his Oceana he ays, "Be the interet of popular government right reaon, a man does not look upon reaon as it is right or wrong in itelf, but as it makes for him or againt him: wherefore, unles you can hew uch orders of a government, as, like thoe of God in nature, hall be able to contrain this or that creature to hake off that inclination which is more peculiar to it, and take up that which regards the common good or interet; all this is to no more end, than to peruade every man, in a popular government, not to carve for himelf of that which he likes bet or deires mot, but "to