Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/12

towards the annihilation of corruption. The modern ariſtocracies of Holland, Venice, Berne, &c. have tempered themſelves with innumerable multitudes of checks, by which they have given a great degree of ſtability to that form of government: and though liberty and life can never be there enjoyed so well as in a free republic, none is perhaps more capable of profound ſagacity. We ſhall learn to prize the checks and balances of a free government, and even thoſe of the modern ariſtocracies, if we recollect the miſeries of Greece which aroſe from their ignorance of them. The only balance attempted againſt the ancient kings was a body of nobles; and the conſequences were perpetual altercations of rebellion and tyranny, and butcheries of thouſands upon every revolution from one to the other. When the kings were aboliſhed, the ariſtocracies tyrannized; and then no balance was attempted but between ariſtocracy and democracy. This, in the nature of things, could be no balance at all, and therefore the pendulum was for ever on the ſwing. It is impoſſible to read in Thucidydes, lib. iii. his account of the factions and confuſions throughout all Greece, which were introduced by this want of an equilibrium, without horror. During the few days that Eurymedon, with his troops, continued at Corcyra, the people of that city extended the maſſacre to all whom they judged their enemies. The crime alleged was, their attempt to overturn the democracy. Some periſhed merely

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