John Adams
DEFENCE OF THE
CONSTITUTIONS OF THE
UNITED STATES (1787)
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LETTER LII.
ROME.
PLEBEIANS SCRAMBLING AFTER PATRICIANS;
OR DEMOCRACY HUNTING DOWN ARISTOCRACY;
OR TRIBUNES IN CHASE OF A SENATE.
But the success of the
Roman arms abroad, became the source of a ruinous corruption at home.
In the
state itself, the governing and the governed felt separate interests,
and were
at variance from motives of avarice, as well as ambition. Two hundred
and
thirty years had elapsed since the animosities of patrician and
plebeian were
extinguished by the equal participation of public honours. This
distinction
itself was, in a great measure, obliterated, and gave way to a new one,
which,
under the denomination of nobles and commons, or
illustrious and obscure, without involving any legal
disparity of
privileges, gave rise to an aristocracy, which was partly hereditary,
founded
on the repeated succession to honours in the same family; and partly
personal,
founded on the habits of high station, and in the advantages of
education, such
as never fail to distinguish the conditions of men in every great and
prosperous state. These circumstances conferred a power on the nobles,
which,
though less invidious, was not less real than that which had been
possessed by
the ancient patricians. The exercise of this power was lodged with the
senate,
a body which, though by the emulation of its members too much disposed
to war,
and ambitious of conquest, was never surpassed in magnanimity, ability,
or in
steadiness, by any council of state whatever. The people had submitted
to the
senate, as possessed of an authority which was founded in the
prevailing
opinion of their superior worth; and even the most aspiring of the
commons
allowed themselves to be governed by an order of men, amongst whom they
themselves, by proper efforts and suitable merit, might hope to ascend.
The
knights, or the equestrian order, being persons possessed of estates or
effects
of a certain valuation, and secluded from the pursuit of political
emolument or
honour, formed, between the senate and the people, an intermediate
rank, who,
in consequence of their having a capital, and being less engaged than
the
senators in affairs of state, became traders, contractors, farmers of
the
revenue, and constituted a species of moneyed interest. Circumstances
which
appear to be fixed in the political state of nations, are often no more
than a
passage in the shifting of scenes, or a transition from that which a
people
have been, to what they are about to become. The nobles began to avail
themselves of the high authority and advantages of their station, and
to
accumulate property as well as honours. Citizens contended for offices
in the
state, as the road to lucrative appointments abroad; and when they had
obtained
this end, and had reigned for a while in some province, they brought
back from
their government a profusion of wealth ill acquired, and the habit of
arbitrary
and uncontrouled command. When disappointed in the pursuits of fortune
abroad,
they became the leaders of dangerous factions at home; or, when
suddenly
possessed of great wealth, they became the agents of corruption, to
disseminate
idleness and the love of ruinous amusements in the minds of the people.
The
city was gradually crowded with a populace, who, tempted with the cheap
or
gratuitous distribution of corn, by the frequency of public shows, by
the
consequence they enjoyed as members of the popular assemblies, flocked
to Rome.
There they were corrupted by idleness and indigence; and the order
itself was
continually debated by the frequent accession of emancipated slaves. A
turbulent populace tyrannized, in their turn, over the masters of the
world,
and wreaked on the conquerors of so many nations the evils which they
themselves had so freely inflicted on mankind. Citizens of this
extraction
could not for ages arrive at any places of trust, in which they could,
by their
personal defects, injure the commonwealth; but they increased, by their
numbers
and their vices, the weight of that dreg, which, in great and
prosperous
cities, ever sinks, by the tendency of vice and misconduct, to the
lowest
condition. They became a part of that faction, who are ever actuated by
envy to
their superiors, by mercenary views, or by abject fear; who are ever
ready to
espouse the cause of any leader, against the restraints of public
order;
disposed to vilify the more respectable ranks of men, and, by their
indifference on the subjects of justice or honour, to frustrate every
principle
that may be employed for the government of mankind, besides fear and
compulsion.
Although citizens of this description were yet far from being the
majority at Rome, yet it is probable that they were in numbers
sufficient to
contaminate the whole body of the people; and if enrolled promiscuously
in all
the tribes, might have had a great weight in turning the scale of
political
councils. This effect, however, was happily prevented, by the wise
precaution
which the centers had taken, to confine all citizens of mean or slavish
extraction to four of the tribes. These were called the tribes of the
city, and
formed but a small proportion of the whole. Notwithstanding this
precaution, we
must suppose them to have been very improper parties in the
participation of
sovereignty, and likely enough to disturb the place of assembly with
disorders
and tumults. While the inferior people sunk in their characters, or
were
debased by the circumstances mentioned, the superior ranks, by their
application to affairs of state, by their education, by the ideas of
high birth
and family distinction, by the superiority of fortune, began to rise in
their
estimation, in their pretensions, and in their power; and they
entertained some
degree of contempt for persons, whom the laws still required them to
admit as
their fellow-citizens and equals.
In this disposition of parties, so dangerous
in a commonwealth, and amidst materials so likely to catch the flame,
some
sparks were thrown, that soon kindled up anew all the popular
animosities which
seemed to have been so long extinguished. Tiberius Gracchus, born of a
plebeian
family, but ennobled by the honours of his father, by his descent, on
the side
of his mother, from the first Scipio Africanus, and by his alliance
with the
second Scipio, who had married his sister, being now a tribune of the
people,
and possessed of all the accomplishments required in a popular leader,
great
ardour, resolution, and eloquence, formed a project in itself extremely
alarming, and in its consequences dangerous to the peace of the
republic. Being
called to account for his conduct as quæstor in Spain, the
severity he
experienced from the senate, and the protection he obtained from the
people,
filled his breast with animosity to the one, and a prepossession in
favour of
the other. Actuated by these dispositions, or by an idea not uncommon
to
enthusiastic minds, that the unequal distribution of property, so
favourable
to the rich, is an injury to the poor t, he proposed a revival
of the
law or Licinius, by which Roman citizens had been restrained from
accumulating
estates in land above the value of five hundred jugera, little more
than half
as many acres.
This was become impracticable, and even dangerous, in the
present state of the republic. The distinctions of poor and rich are as
necessary, in states of considerable extent, as labour and good
government. The
poor are destined to labour; and the rich, by the advantages of
education,
independence, and leisure, are qualified for superior stations. The
empire
was now greatly extended, and owed its safety, and the order of its
government,
to a respectable aristocracy, founded on the possession of fortune, as
well as
personal qualities and public honours. The rich were not, without some
violent
convulsion, to be stript of estates which they themselves had bought,
or which
they had inherited from their ancestors. The poor were not qualified at
once to
be raised to a state of equality with persons inured to a better
condition. The
project seemed to be as ruinous to government as it was to the security
of
property, and tended to place the members of the commonwealth, by one
rash and
precipitate step, in situations in which they were not at all qualified
to act.
For these reasons, as well as from motives of private interest
affecting the
majority of the nobles, the project of Tiberius was strenuously opposed
by the
senate; and, from motives of envy, interest, or mistaken zeal for
justice, as
warmly supported by the opposite party. Acting in concert with Appius
Claudius,
whose daughter he had married, a senator of the family of Crassus, who
was then
at the head of the priesthood, and Mutius Scævola the consul, he
exhausted all his art, and displayed all his eloquence in declamation;
but when
he came to propose that the law should be read, he found that his
opponents had
procured M. Octavius, one of his colleagues, to interpose his negative,
and
forbid any further proceeding in the business. Here, according to the
law
and the constitution, the matter should have dropped: but inflamed and
unbalanced parties are not to be restrained by laws and constitutions.
The
tribunes were instituted to defend their own party, not to attack their
opponents; and to prevent, not to promote innovations. Every single
tribune had
a negative on the whole. — The rest of the story I must leave. — The
constitution thus violated, Gracchus next violated the sacred character
of his
colleague the tribune. The senate were transported with indignation;
violence
ensued, and the two Gracchi fell. Afterwards Marius carried the popular
pretentions still higher; and Sylla might, if he would, have been
emperor.
Cæsar followed, and completed the catastrophe.
This commonwealth, by the splendor of its actions, the extent of its
empire,
the wisdom of its councils, the talents, integrity, and courage of a
multitude
of characters, exhibits the fairest prospect of our species, and is the
most
signal example, excepting England, of the wisdom and utility of a
mixture of
the three powers in a commonwealth: on the other hand, the various
vicissitudes
of its fortune, its perpetual domestic contests, and internal
revolutions, are
the clearest proofs of the evils arising from the want of complete
independence
in each branch, and from an ineffectual balance.