{"product_id":"2940012444578","title":"An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy Of the Government of The United States","description":"Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure.  It is also searchable and contains hyper-links to chapters. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn excerpt from the introductory:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTO THE PUBLICK\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book being written for your use, and subject to your judgement, the means, motives and habits of the author ought to be disclosed, lest its imperfections should be ascribed to his cause, instead of his bias or inability.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving arrived at manhood just before the commencement of the revolutionary war, the ardour of that controversy, a considerable intercourse with many of the chiefs who managed it, a service of three years in the continental army, of twelve in legislative bodies, and an experience of our policy both in poverty and affluence, inspired him with the opinions he has endeavoured to sustain. At the age of forty, his circumstances, which had been ruined by military expenses and the depreciation of paper money, having been repaired by the practice of the law, a desire of being more useful, induced him to devote the residue of his life in a private station, to the advancement of academical, agricultural, and political knowledge. These essays contain the result of his endeavours as to the last; and whatever may be their fate, he is not conscious of having written a single sentence from a bad motive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUpon the appearance of Mr. Adams’s defence of the American constitutions, and of the essays signed Publius, but entitled the Federalist, he imbibed an opinion, that both had paid too much respect of political skeletons, constructed with fragments torn from monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, called, in these essays, the numerical analysis; and too little to the ethereal moral principles, alone able to bind governments to the interest of nations. Subsequent occurrences induced him to conclude, that a confidence in that analysis, inspired by these books, had deadened the public attention to the only means for preserving a free and moderate government. And the following essays (in which the reader will not find Mr. Adams’s erudition, nor the elegant style of Publius, because the author was not master of them) are the contemporaneous suggestions of these occurrences or of experience, designed to portray human nature in a political state, and to explain the moral principles capable of foretelling its actions, and controlling its vices.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMonarchy, aristocracy and democracy, appeared to the author to be inartificial, rude, and almost savage political fabricks; and the idea of building a new one with the materials they could afford, seemed like that of erecting a palace with materials drawn from Indian cabins. He thought that these respectable commentators, in making the attempt, had allowed little or nothing new or preeminent to the policy of the United States; had overlooked both the foundation and the beautiful entablature of its pillars; and had left mankind still enchanted within the magick circle of the numerical analysis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBelieving that the true value and real superiority of our policy consisted in its good moral principles; that these principles were the only worthy object of national affection, and the only just solution of the ill success of other governments and of the wonderful prosperity of our own; that by transplanting it upon the British substratum, maxims and measures destructive to ours, however calculated for their political system, would be introduced; that the danger of this approximation was greatly augmented, by the respect which the English form of government attracts as the work of our gallant ancestors, the source of our affection for liberty, and the solitary rival of our own; that the belief of such an affinity, would enable legislation to draw the confines of the two forms of Government so near together, that a step or even a stumble might pass from one to the other; and that a disclosure of the contrariety in their principles, might become a beacon against an exchange of good and lasting moral principles, for cobweb and fluctuating numerical balances; the author of these essays concluded, that the next age ought not to be deluded, by the silence of its predecessors, into a belief that this affinity was generally allowed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlthough the elevation of the British form of government, produced by a few moral principles, violently and of course clumsily thrust under it at different times, constituted the American observatory at the epoch of the revolution; from whence, through the telescope, necessity, new principles were discovered, now confirmed by the distinct experience of each state for periods, exceeding, when united, the duration of any one of the modifications of the British government: yet the non-existence of the supposed affinity is at once disclosed by the few words ‘balance of orders and judicial independence’....","brand":"OGB","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47073458913520,"sku":"2940012444578","price":1.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012444578_p0.jpg?v=1763569083","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012444578","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}