Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/22

xiv for the executive power being in other hands, he has lot much of his influence with the people, and can govern very few votes more than his own among the enators.

It was the general opinion of ancient nations, that the divinity alone was adequate to the important office of giving laws to men. The Greeks entertained this prejudice throughout all their diperions; the Romans cultivated the ame popular deluion; and modern nations, in the conecrations of kings, and in everal upertitious chimeras of divine rights in princes and nobles, are nearly unanimous in preerving remnants of it: even the venerable magitrates of Amersfort devoutly believe themelves God's vicegerents. Is it that obedience to the laws can be obtained from mankind in no other manner?—Is the jealouy of power, and the envy of uperiority, o trong in all men, that no coniderations of public or private utility are ufficient to engage their ubmiion to rules for their own happines? Or is the dipoition to impoture o prevalent in men of experience, that their private views of ambition and avarice can be accomplihed only by artifice?—It was a tradition in antiquity that the laws of Crete were dictated to Minos by the inpiration of Jupiter. This legilator, and his brother Rhadamanthus, were both his ons; once in nine years they went to convere with their father, to propoe quetions concerning the wants