"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
"If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition is just, the British constitution is nothing more or less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government's being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend."
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Source: John Adams (2015). “The Works of John Adams Vol. 4: Novanglus, Thoughts on Government, Defence of the Constitution I”, p.90, Jazzybee Verlag
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