}

L..

A

DEFENCE

OF THE

CONSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT

OF THE

UNITED STATES

ОР

AMERICA,

AGAINST THE ATTACK OF M. TURGOT

IN HIS

LETTER TO DR. PRICE,

DATED THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY OF MARCH, 1778.

BY JOHN ADAMS, LL. D.

AND A MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
AT BOSTON.

As for us Englishmen, thank Heaven, we have a better fenfe of government,
delivered to us from our ancestors. We have the notion of a public, and a,
conftitution; how a legislative, and how an executive, is moulded. We in
derstand weight and meature in this kind, and canʼreafon juftiy on the ba
lance of power and property. The mixed from hence are as evi-
dent as thofe of raathematics. Our increafiag knowledge thets us every
day more and more what common fenfe is in postict...

SHARTESKURY'S Charact. vol. i. p. 108.
'Tis fcarce a quarter of an age fince fuch a happy balance of power was festled
between our prince and people as has firmly feeurod-out hitherto précarious
liberties, and removed from, us the fear of civil commotions, wars, and vio-
lence, either on account of the property of the subject, or the contending
titles of the crown.

VOL. II.

A NEW EDITION.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR JOHN STOCKDALE, PICCADILLY.

1794.

ад

A

DEFENCE

OF THE

CONSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT

OF THE UNITED STATES OF

AMERICA.

Italian Republics of the Middle Age.

Grosvenor-fquare, April 19, 1787.

MY DEAR SIR,

THE

HERE is no example of a government fimply democratical; yet there are many of forms nearly or remotely refembling what are understood by All Authority in one Center. There once exifted a cluster of governments, now generally known by the name of the Italian Republics of the Middle Age, which deferve the attention. of Americans, and will farther futtate and confirm the principles we have endeavoured to maintain. If it appears, from the hiftory of all the ancient republics of Greece, Italy, and, Afia Minor, as well as from thote that fill remain in Switzerland, Italy, and elsewhere, that caprice, inftability, turbulence, revolutions, and the alternate prevalence of those two plagues and fcourges of mankind, tyranny and anarchy, were the effects of governments without three orders and a balance, the fame important truth will appear, in a ftill clearer light, in the republics of Italy. The sketches to be given of thefe cannot be introduced with more

propriety, than by the fentiments of a late writer,* because they coincide with every thing that has been before obferved. Limited monarchies were the ancient governments: the jealoufies and errors of the nobles, or the oppreffions they fuffered, timulated them to render monarchy unpopular, and erect aristocracies. Ancient nations were, in one point, very generally defective in their conftitutions, and that was the incertitude of the fovereignty, and, by confequence, the inftability of government, which was, in all the republics of Italy, a perpetual occafion of infinite confufions. In no part of Italy, however united together, was found established an abfolute hereditary monarch. By many examples, it is manifeft, that kings either were created by the favour of the multitude, or fought at least their confent, and confulted the people in affairs of most importance and greatest danger. The government of the grandees, which fucceeded, was rather a fraudulent or violent ufurpation, than a true and proper aristocracy eftablished by law, or confirmed by long and uncontefted. poffeffion; and a popular government was never to free or fo durable, as when it was mixed with the authority of one fiipreme head, or of a fenate fo that mixed governments were almoft always preferred. One of the three kinds of governichts nevertheless fell, when another arote; and all the Italian republics, nearly at one time, by the fame gradations, paffed from one form of adminiftration to another. In this particular agree all the memorials of ancient Italy. They were, from the beginning, governed by kings: the Tufcans had kings; the Sabines had kings; and fo had the people of Latium; and as every city formed an independent government, thefe Danina, Rivoluzioni d'Italia, v. i. p. 41.