Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/190

152 a barbarous rock that no man invades, and relates nothing to our quetion. The republic of St. Marino, next to that of Millingen in Switzerland, is the mallet republic in Europe. The limits of it extend no farther than the bae of the mountain on which it is eated. Its inignificance is its ecurity. No neighbouring prince ever thought it worth his while to detroy the independency of uch a Beehive. See Blainville's Travels, vol. ii. p. 227. Addion's Remarks on everal parts of Italy.

Sidney, p, 258. However, more ignorance cannot be expreed, than by giving the name of democracy to thoe governments that are compoed of the three imple pecies, as we have proved that all the good ones have ever been: for, in a trict ene, it can only uit with thoe, where the people retain to themelves the adminitration of the upreme power; and more largely, when the popular part, as in Athens, greatly overbalances the other two, and the denomination is taken from the prevailing part.