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| A Defense of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America
by John Adams
Marchamont Nedham lays it down as a fundamental principle and an
undeniable rule, "That the people, (that is, such as shall be successively
chosen to represent the people,) are the best keepers of their own
liberties, and that for many reasons. First, because they never think of
usurping over other men’s rights, but mind which way to preserve their
own."
Our first attention should be turned to the proposition itself,—"The
people are the best keepers of their own liberties."
But who are the people?
"Such as shall be successively chosen to represent them."
Here is a confusion both of words and ideas, which, though it may pass
with the generality of readers in a fugitive pamphlet, or with a majority
of auditors in a popular harangue, ought, for that very reason, to be as
carefully avoided in politics as it is in philosophy or mathematics. If by
the people is meant the whole body of a great nation, it should
never be forgotten, that they can never act, consult, or reason together,
because they cannot march five hundred miles, nor spare the time, nor find
a space to meet; and, therefore, the proposition, that they are the best
keepers of their own liberties, is not true. They are the worst
conceivable; they are no keepers at all. They can neither act, judge,
think or will, as a body politic or corporation. If by the people
is meant all the inhabitants of a single city, they are not in a general
assembly, at all times, the best keepers of their own liberties, nor
perhaps at any time, unless you separate from them the executive and
judicial power, and temper their authority in legislation with the maturer
counsels of the one and the few. If it is meant by the people, as
our author explains himself, a representative assembly, "such as shall be
successively chosen to represent the people," still they are not the best
keepers of the people’s liberties or their own, if you give them all the
power, legislative, executive, and judicial. They would invade the
liberties of the people, at least the majority of them would invade the
liberties of the minority, sooner and oftener than an absolute monarchy,
such as that of France, Spain, or Russia, or than a well-checked
aristocracy, like Venice, Bern, or Holland.
An excellent writer has said, somewhat incautiously, that "a people
will never oppress themselves, or invade their own rights." This
compliment, if applied to human nature, or to mankind, or to any nation or
people in being or in memory, is more than has been merited. If it should
be admitted that a people will not unanimously agree to oppress
themselves, it is as much as is ever, and more than is always, true. All
kinds of experience show, that great numbers of individuals do oppress
great numbers of other individuals; that parties often, if not always,
oppress other parties, and majorities almost universally minorities. All
that this observation can mean then, consistently with any color of fact,
is, that the people will never unanimously agree to oppress themselves.
But if one party agrees to oppress another, or the majority the minority,
the people still oppress themselves, for one part of them oppress another.
"The people never think of usurping over other men’s rights."
What can this mean? Does it mean that the people never
unanimously think of usurping over other men’s rights? This would
be trifling; for there would, by the supposition, be no other men’s rights
to usurp. But if the people never, jointly nor severally, think of
usurping the rights of others, what occasion can there be for any
government at all? Are there no robberies, burglaries, murders,
adulteries, thefts, nor cheats? Is not every crime a usurpation over other
men’s rights? Is not a great part, I will not say the greatest part, of
men detected every day in some disposition or other, stronger or weaker,
more or less, to usurp over other men’s rights? There are some few,
indeed, whose whole lives and conversations show that, in every thought,
word, and action, they conscientiously respect the rights of others. There
is a larger body still, who, in the general tenor of their thoughts and
actions, discover similar principles and feelings, yet frequently err. If
we should extend our candor so far as to own, that the majority of men are
generally under the dominion of benevolence and good intentions, yet, it
must be confessed, that a vast majority frequently transgress; and, what
is more directly to the point, not only a majority, but almost all,
confine their benevolence to their families, relations, personal friends,
parish, village, city, county, province, and that very few, indeed, extend
it impartially to the whole community. Now, grant but this truth, and the
question is decided. If a majority are capable of preferring their own
private interest, or that of their families, counties, and party, to that
of the nation collectively, some provision must be made in the
constitution, in favor of justice, to compel all to respect the common
right, the public good, the universal law, in preference to all private
and partial considerations.
The proposition of our author, then, should be reversed, and it should
have been said, that they mind so much their own, that they never think
enough of others. .....
We concur also most sincerely in our author’s conclusion, in part,
namely,——That since kings and all standing powers are so inclinable to act
according to their own wills and interests, in making, expounding, and
executing of laws, to the prejudice of the people’s liberty and security,
no laws whatsoever should be made but by the people’s consent, as the only
means to prevent arbitrariness." But we must carry the conclusion farther,
namely,—that since all men are so inclinable to act according to their own
wills and interests, in making, expounding, and executing laws, to the
prejudice of the people’s liberty and security, the sovereign authority,
the legislative, executive, and judicial power, can never be safely lodged
in one assembly, though chosen annually by the people; because the
majority and their leaders, the principes populi, will as certainly
oppress the minority, and make, expound, and execute laws for their own
wealth, power, grandeur, and glory, to the prejudice of the liberty and
security of the minority, as hereditary kings or standing senates.
The conclusion, therefore, that "the people, in a succession of their
supreme single assemblies, are the best keepers of their liberties," must
be wholly reprobated. .....
It is indeed a "most excellent maxim, that the original and fountain of
all just power and government is in the people;" and if ever this maxim
was fully demonstrated and exemplified among men, it was in the late
American Revolution, where thirteen governments were taken down from the
foundation, and new ones elected wholly by the people, as an architect
would pull down an old building and erect a new one. There will be no
dispute, then, with Cicero, when he says, "A mind well instructed by the
light of nature, will pay obedience," willingly "to none but such as
command, direct, or govern for its good or benefit;" nor will our author’s
inferences from these passages from that oracle of human wisdom be denied:
"1. That by the light of nature people are taught to be their own
carvers and contrivers in the framing of that government under which they
mean to live.
"2. That none are to preside in government, or sit at the helm, but
such as shall be judged fit, and chosen by the people.
"3. That the people are the only proper judges of the convenience or
inconvenience of a government when it is erected, and of the behavior of
governors after they are chosen."
But then it is insisted, that rational and regular means shall be used
that the whole people may be their own carvers, that they may judge and
choose who shall preside, and that they may determine on the convenience
or inconvenience of government, and the behavior of governors. But then it
is insisted, that the town of Berwick upon Tweed shall not carve, judge,
choose, and determine for the whole kingdom of Great Britain, nor the
county of Berkshire for the Massachusetts; much less that a lawless
tyrannical rabble shall do all this for the state, or even for the county
of Berkshire.
It may be, and is admitted, that a free government is most natural, and
only suitable to the reason of mankind; but it by no means follows "that
the other forms, as of a standing power in the hands of a particular
person, as a king; or of a set number of great ones, as in a senate," much
less that a mixture of the three simple forms "are beside the dictates of
nature, and mere artificial devices of great men, squared out only to
serve the ends and interests of avarice, pride, and ambition of a few, to
a vassalizing of the community." If the original and fountain of all power
and government is in the people, as undoubtedly it is, the people have as
clear a right to erect a simple monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, or an
equal mixture, or any other mixture of all three, if they judge it for
their liberty, happiness, and prosperity, as they have to erect a
democracy; and infinitely greater and better men than Marchamont Nedham,
and the wisest nations that ever lived, have preferred such mixtures, and
even with such standing powers as ingredients in their compositions. But
even those nations who choose to reserve in their own hands the periodical
choice of the first magistrate, senate, and assembly, at certain stated
periods, have as clear a right to appoint a first magistrate for life as
for years, and for perpetuity in his descendants as for life.
When I say for perpetuity or for life, it is always meant to imply,
that the same people have at all times a right to interpose, and to depose
for maladministration—to appoint anew. No appointment of a king or senate,
or any standing power, can be, in the nature of things, for a longer
period than quam diu se bene gesserit, the whole nation being
judge. An appointment for life or perpetuity can be no more than an
appointment until further order; but further order can only be given by
the nation.
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