You are afraid of the one–I, of the few. We agree perfectly that the many should have a full fair and perfect Representation.–You are Apprehensive of Monarchy; I, of Aristocracy. I would therefore have given more Power to the President and less to the Senate.

This passage comes from John Adams’s private correspondence during the early republic, reflecting debates over the U.S. Constitution’s balance of powers. Adams is responding to a political interlocutor who fears concentrated executive authority (“the one”) and prefers stronger legislative checks. Adams counters that his own anxiety runs in the opposite direction: he worries that an empowered Senate could harden into an “aristocracy” and dominate the system. The remark situates Adams within the broader Federalist-era argument about mixed government—how to secure popular representation (“the many”) while preventing either monarchical executive power or oligarchic legislative power from becoming tyrannical.

Adams frames constitutional design as a problem of balancing three forces: the one (executive), the few (an elite or upper chamber), and the many (the people). He concedes the democratic principle—broad, fair representation—yet insists that danger can come not only from a strong president but also from a powerful, socially elevated Senate. His preference for “more Power to the President and less to the Senate” suggests he saw the executive as a necessary counterweight to entrenched elites, and that he feared legislative aristocracy could be more durable and less accountable than a single magistrate. The quote crystallizes Adams’s suspicion of oligarchy and his commitment to a mixed, competitive constitutional structure.