Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/185

Rh conited of no more than two of the three etates, which we have poken of before, that is, of royalty and aritocracy: it remained, therefore, till neceary to admit the people into ome hare of the government: and the patricians growing o inolent in time (as I hall hew hereafter), that the plebeians could no longer endure it, the latter took arms, and obliged them to relinquih part of their authority, let they hould loe the whole: on the other hand, the conuls and enators till retained o much power in the commonwealth, as enabled them to upport their rank and dignity with honour. This truggle gave birth to certain officers, called tribunes of the people; after the creation of whom, that tate became more firm and compact, every one of the three degrees abovementioned having its proper hare in the government; and o propitious was fortune to it, that although it was changed from a monarchy into an aritocracy, and afterwards into a democracy, by the teps and for the reaons already aigned, yet the royal power was never entirely abolihed and given to the patricians, nor that of the patricians wholly to the plebeians: on the contrary, the authority of the three etates being duly proportioned and mixed together, gave it the highet degree of perfection that any commonwealth is capable of attaining to;—and this was owing in a great meaure, if not altogether, to the dientions that happened betwixt the patricians and plebeians, as hall be hewn more at large in the following chapters.