Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/221

Rh It is from the natural aritocracy in a ingle aembly that the firt danger is to be apprehended in the preent tate of manners in America; and with a balance of landed property in the hands of the people, o decided in their favour, the progres to degeneracy, corruption, rage, and violence, might not be very rapid; nevertheles it would begin with the firt elections, and grow fater or lower every year.

Rage and violence would oon appear in the aembly, and from thence be communicated among the people at large.

The only remedy is to throw the rich and the proud into one group, in a eparate aembly, and there tie their hands; if you give them cope with the people at large, or their repreentatives, they will detroy all equality and liberty, with the conent and acclamations of the people themelves. They will have much more power, mixed with the repreentatives, than eparated from them. In the firt cafe, if they unite, they will give the law, and govern all; if they differ, they will divide the tate, and go to a deciion by force. But placing them alone by themelves, the ociety avails itelf of all their abilities and virtues; they become a olid check to the repreentatives themelves, as well as to the executive power, and you diarm them entirely of the power to do michief.