CHAPTER XVI

A PEOPLE ACCUSTOMED TO LIVING UNDER A PRINCE, IF BY SOME ACCIDENT BECOMES FREE, MAINTAINS ITS LIBERTY WITH DIFFICULTY

Many examples derived from the records of ancient history will show how difficult it is for a people used to living under a Prince to preserve their liberty after they had by some accident acquired it, as Rome acquired it after driving out the Tarquins. And such difficulty is reasonable; because that people is nothing else other than a brute animal, which (although by nature ferocious and wild) has always been brought up in prison and servitude, [and] which later being left by chance free in a field, [and] not being accustomed to [obtain] food or not knowing where to find shelter for refuge, becomes prey to the first one who seeks to enchain it again. This same thing happens to a people, who being accustomed to living under governments of others, not knowing to reason either on public defense or offense, not knowing the Princes or being known by them, return readily under a yoke, which often times is more heavy than that which a short time before had been taken from their necks: and they find themselves in this difficulty, even though the people is not wholly corrupt; for a people where corruption has not entirely taken over, cannot but live at all free even for a very brief time, as will be discussed below: and therefore our discussions concern those people where corruption has not expanded greatly, and where there is more of the good than of the bad [spoiled]. To the above should be added another difficulty, which is that the state which becomes free makes enemy partisans, and not friendly partisans. All those men become its enemy partisans who avail themselves of the tyrannical state, feeding on the riches of the Prince, [and] who when they are deprived of the faculty of thus availing themselves, cannot live content, and some are forced to attempt to reestablish the tyrancy so as to recover their authority. It does not (as I have said) acquire friendly partisans, for a free society bestows honors and rewards through the medium of honest and predetermined rules, and outside of which does not honor or reward anyone; and when one receives those honors and rewards as appears to them he merits, he does not consider he has any obligation to repay them: in addition to this that common usefulness which free society brings with it, is not known by anyone (while he yet possesses it), which is to be able to enjoy his own possessions freely without any suspicion, not being apprehensive of the honor of his womenfolk, or that of his children, and not to fear offer himself; for no one will ever confess himself to have an obligation to one who only does not offend him.

Thus (as was said above) a free state that has newly sprung up comes to have enemy partisans and not friendly partisans. And wanting to remedy this inconvenience and these disorders which the above mentioned difficulties bring with them, there is no remedy more powerful, nor more valid, healthy, and necessary than [was] the killing of the sons of Brutus, who, as history shows, together with other Roman youths were induced to conspire against their country for no other reason than because they could not obtain extraordinary advantages for themselves under the Consuls as under the Kings; so that the liberty of that people appeared to have become their servitude. And whoever undertakes to govern a multitude either by the way of liberty [Republic] or by the way of a Principate, and does not make sure of those who are enemies of that new institution, establishes a short lived state. It is true that I judge those Princes unfelicitous who, to assure their state when the multitude is hostile, have to take extraordinary means; for he who has only a few enemies can easily and without great scandals make sure of them, but he who has the general public hostile to him can never make sure of them, and the more cruelty he uses, so much more weak becomes his Principate; so that the best remedy he has is to seek to make the People friendly. And although this discussion departs from that written above, in speaking of a Prince here and of a Republic there, none the less in order not to have to return again to this matter I want to speak a little more.

A Prince, therefore, wanting to gain over to himself a people who are hostile to him (speaking of those Princes who have become Tyrants in their country), I say that they ought first to look into that which the people desire, and he will find they always desire two things: the one, to avenge themselves against those who are the cause of their slavery: the other, to regain their liberty. The first desire the Prince is able to satisfy entirely, the second in part. As to the first, there is an example in point. When Clearchus, Tyrant of Heraclea, was in exile, a controversy arose between the people and the Nobles of Heraclea, [and] the Nobles seeing themselves inferior, turned to favor Clearchus, and conspiring with him they placed him in opposition to the disposition of the people of Heraclea, and [thus] took away the liberty from the people. So that Clearchus finding himself between the insolence of the Nobles, whom he could not in any way either content or correct, and the rage of the People who could not endure having lost their liberty, he decided suddenly to free himself from the nuisance of the Nobles, and to win the people over to himself. And on this, taking a convenient opportunity, he cut to pieces all the Nobles, to the extreme satisfaction of the People. And thus, in this way, he satisfied one of the desires people had, that is, to avenge themselves. But as to the desire of the people to regain their liberty, the Prince, not being able to satisfy it, ought to examine what are the reasons that make them desire to be free, and he will find that a small part of them desire to be free in order to command, but all the others, who are an infinite number, desire liberty also as to live in security. For in all Republics in whatever manner organized, there are never more than forty or fifty Citizens of a rank to command, and because this number is small, it is an easy matter to assure oneself of them, either by taking them out of the way, or by giving them a part of so many honors as, according to their condition, ought in good part to content them. The others, to whom it is enough to live in security, are easily satisfied by creating institutions and laws which, together with his power, gives realization to the general security of the people. And when a Prince does this, and the people see that no one breaks such laws by accident, they will begin in a very short time to live in security and contentment. In example for this, there is the Kingdom of France, which lives in security from nothing else other than those Kings being bound by an infinite number of laws in which the security of his people is realized. And whoever organized that state wanted that those Kings should do (in their own way) with the arms and the money as they wanted, but should not be able to dispose of any other thing otherwise than by the laws that were ordained. That Prince, therefore, or that Republic, that does not secure itself at the beginning of its state, should assure itself at the first opportunity, as the Romans did. And he who should allow this to pass will repent too late of not doing that which he ought to have done. The Roman people, therefore, being not yet corrupted when they recovered their liberty, were able to maintain it, after the sons of Brutus were put to death and the Tarquins destroyed, with all those remedies and institutions which have been discussed at another time. But if that people had been corrupted, there never would have been found valid remedies, in Rome or elsewhere, to maintain it [their liberty], as we shall show in the next chapter.