Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/183

Rh abovementioned caues, into mirule and licentiounes. Such is the rotation to which all tates are ubjecl; nevertheles they cannot often revert to the ame kind of government, becaue it is not poible that they hould o long exit as to undergo many of thee mutations: for it frequently happens, that when a tate is labouring under uch convulions, and is detitute both of trength and counel, it falls a prey to ome other neighbouring community or nation that is better governed; otherwie it might pas through the everal abovementioned revolutions again and again to infinity.

All thee orts of government then, in my opinion, are infirm and inecure; the three former from the uual hortnes of their duration, and the three latter from the malignity of their own principles. The wiet legilators, therefore, being aware of thee defects, never etablihed any one of them in particular, but contrived another that partakes of them all, confiding of a prince, lords, and commons, which they looked upon as more firm and table, becaue every one of thee members would be a check upon the other; and of thoe legilators, Lycurgus certainly merits the highet praie, who contituted an etablihment of this kind at Sparta, which lated above eight hundred years, to his own great honour, as well as the tranquillity of the citizens.

Very different was the fate of the government etablihed by Solon at Athens, which, being a imple democracy only, was of o hort continuance, that it gave way to the tyranny of Piitratus, before the death of the legilator: and though, indeed, the heirs of that tyrant were expelled about forty years after, and the Athenians not only recovered their liberty, but ed