Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/175

Rh "  of the people; and that which is proper for counellors is firt to debate, and afterwards to give advice in the buines whereon they have debated; whence the decrees of the enate are never laws, nor o called—enatus conulta; and thee, being maturely framed, it is their duty to propoe to the people: wherefore the enate is no more than the debate of the commonwealth. But to debate is to dicern, or put a difference between things, that, being alike, are not the ame; or it is eparating and weighing this reaon againt that, and that reaon againt this; which is dividing.

"The enate then having divided, who hall chooe? Ak the girls; for if he that divided mut have choen alo, it had been little wore for the other, in cae he had not divided at all, but kept the whole cake to herelf; in regard that, being to chooe too, he divided accordingly.

"Wherefore, if the enate have any further power than to divide, the commonwealth can never be equal. But, in a commonwealth coniting of a ingle council, there is no other to chooe than that which divided: whence it is, that uch a council fails not to cramble, that is, to be factious; there being no dividing of the cake, in that cae, but among themelves: nor is there any other remedy, but to have another council to chooe. The widom of the few may be the light of mankind; but the interet of the few is not the profit of mankind, nor of a commonwealth: wherefore, eeing we have granted interet to be reaon, they mut not chooe, let they put out their light. But as the council dividing conits of the widom of the commonwealth, o the "embly