Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/222

184

Dear Sir,

IONYSIUS Halicarnaenis, in his eventh book, has given us an excellent peech in the enate, made by Manlius Valerius, a man venerable for his age and widom, and remarkable for his contant friendhip for the people.

"If any of you, fathers! alarmed with an apprehenion that you will introduce a pernicious cutom into the commonwealth, if you grant the people a power of giving their uffrages againt the patricians, and entertain an opinion that the tribunitian power, if coniderably trengthened, will prove of no advantage, let them learn, that their opinion is erroneous, and their imagination contrary to ound reaoning: for if any meaure can tend to preerve this commonwealth, to aure both her liberty and power, and to etablifh a perpetual union and harmony in all things, the mot effectual will be to give the people a hare in the government: and the mod advantageous thing to us will be, not to have a imple and unmixed, form of government; neither a monarchy, an oligarchy, nor a democracy, but a contitution tempered with all of them: for each of thee forms, when imple, very eaily deviates into abue and exces; but when all of them are equally mixed, that part which happens to innovate, and to exceed the cutomary bounds, is always retrained by another that is ober, and adheres to the etablihed order.—