Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/204

166 his empire, but property, is called; and the empire, in this cae, is abolute monarchy. If the few, or a nobility, or a nobility with a clergy, be landlords to uch a proportion as over-balances the people in the like manner, they may make whom they pleae king; or, if they be not pleaed with their king, down with him, and et up whom they like better; a Henry the fourth, or eventh, a Guie, a Montfort, a Nevil, or a Porter, hould they find that bet for their own ends and purpoes: for as not the balance of the king, but that of the nobility, in this cae, is the caue of the government, o not the etate of the prince or captain, but his virtue or ability, or fitnes for the ends of the nobility, acquires that command or office. This for aritocracy, or mixed monarchy. But if the whole people be landlords, or hold the lands o divided among them, that no one man, or number of men, within the compas of the few, or aritocracy, over-balance them, it is a commonwealth. Such is the branch in the root, or the balance of property naturally producing empire.

Then follows a curious account of the laws in Irael againt uury, and in Lacedemon againt trade, &c. which are well worth tudying.

Page 254.—That which, introducing two etates, caues diviion, or makes a commonwealth unequal, is not that he has a nobility, without which he is deprived of her mot pecial ornament, and weakened in her conduct, but when the nobility only is capable of magitracy, or of the enate; and where this is o ordered, he is unequal, as Rome. But where the nobility is no otherwie capable of magitracy, nor of the enate, than by election of the people, the commonwealth conits but of one order, and is