Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/27

Rh he little thought of venturing to propoe to them any quetions: circumtances, however, have lately occurred, which eemed to require that ome notice hould be taken of one of them. If the publication of thee papers hould contribute any thing to turn the attention of the younger gentlemen of letters in America to this kind of enquiry, it will produce an effect of ome importance to their country. The ubject, is the mot intereting that can engage the undertanding or the heart; for whether the end of man, in this tage of his exitence, be enjoyment or improvement, or both, it can never be attained o well in a bad government as a good one.

The practicability or the duration of a republic, in which there is a governor, a enate, and a houe of repreentatives, is doubted by Tacitus, though he admits the theory to be laudable:—"Cunctas nationes et urbes, populus, aut priores, aut inguli, regunt. Delecta ex his et contituta reipublicæ forma, laudari facilius quam inveniri; vel, i evenit, haud diuturna ee potet." Ann. lib. iv.—Cicero aerts—"Statuo ee optime contitutam rempublicam, quæ ex tribus generibus illis, regali, optimo, et populari, modice confua." Frag.—in uch peremptory terms the uperiority of uch a government to all other forms, that the los of his book upon republics is much to