Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/208

170 manifet, that the bet form of government is that which is compounded of all three.—This is founded not only in reaon but in experience, Lycurgus having et the example of this form of government in the intitution of the Lacedemonian commonwealth."

Six kinds of government mut be allowed: kingly government and monarchy, aritocracy and oligarchy, democracy, and the government of the multitude.

Lycurgus concluded, that every form of government that is imple, by oon degenerating into that vice that is allied to it, mut be untable. The vice of kingly government is monarchy; that of aritocracy, oligarchy; that of democracy, rage and violence; into which, in proces of time, all of them mut degenerate. Lycurgus, to avoid thee inconveniences, formed his government not of one ort, but united in one all the advantages and properties of the bet governments; to the end that no branch of it, by welling beyond its due bounds, might degenerate into the vice which is congenial to it; and that, while each of them were mutually acted upon by oppoite powers, no one part might incline any way, or out-weigh the ret; but that the commonwealth, being equally poied and balanced, like a hip or a waggon, acted upon by contrary powers, might long remain in the fame ituation; while the king was retrained from exces by the fear of the people, who had a proper hare in the commonwealth; and, on the other ide, the people did not dare to diregard the king, from their fear of the enate, who, being all elected for their virtue, would always incline to the jutet ide; by which means, that branch which happened to be oppreed became always uperior, and, by the acceional weight of the enate, out- balanced