“In every society known to man,” he claimed, “an aristocracy has risen up in the course of time, consisting of a few rich and honorable families who have united with each other against both the people and the first magistrate.” There were very few universal principles in the Adams political universe, but this was one of them. All societies eventually produced social and economic elites that, left unchecked, achieved political domination at the expense of everyone else. Although Jefferson probably did not remember it, Adams had alerted him to their differences on this score in December 1787:
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