Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/21

Rh words, without eparating the executive power from the legilative. If the executive power, or any coniderable part of it, is left in the hands either of an aritocratical or a democratical aembly, it will corrupt the legilature as necearily as rut corrupts iron, or as arenic poions the human body; and when the legilature is corrupted the people are undone.

The rich, the well-born, and the able, acquire an influence among the people, that will oon be too much for imple honety and plain ene, in a houe of repreentatives. The mot illutrious of them mut therefore be eparated from the mas, and placed by themelves in a enate: this is, to all honet and ueful intents, an otracim. A member of a enate, of immene wealth, the mot repected birth, and trancendent abilities, has no influence in the nation, in comparion of what he would have in a ingle repreentative aembly. When a enate exits, the mot powerful man in the tate may be afely admitted into the houe of repreentatives, becaue the people have it in their power to remove him into the enate as oon as his influence becomes dangerous. The enate becomes the great object of ambition; and the richet and the mot agacious wih to merit an advancement to it by ervices to the public in the houe. When he has obtained the object of his wihes, you may till hope for the benefits of his exertions, without dreading his paions; for