any accident it become free, can hardly preserve that Freedom._
Should a people accustomed to live under a prince by any accident
become free, as did the Romans on the expulsion of the Tarquins, we
know from numberless instances recorded in ancient history, how hard it
will be for it to maintain that freedom. And this is no more than we
might expect. For a people in such circumstances may be likened to the
wild animal which, though destined by nature to roam at large in the
woods, has been reared in the cage and in constant confinement and
which, should it chance to be set free in the open country, being
unused to find its own food, and unfamiliar with the coverts where it
might lie concealed, falls a prey to the first who seeks to recapture
it. Even thus it fares with the people which has been accustomed to be
governed by others; since ignorant how to act by itself either for
attack or defence, and neither knowing foreign princes nor being known
of them, it is speedily brought back under the yoke, and often under a
heavier yoke than that from which it has just freed its neck. These
difficulties will be met with, even where the great body of the
citizens has not become wholly corrupted; but where the corruption is
complete, freedom, as shall presently be shown, is not merely fleeting
but impossible. Wherefore my remarks are to be taken as applying to
those States only wherein corruption has as yet made no great progress,
and in which there is more that is sound than unsound.
To the difficulties above noticed, another has to be added, which is,
that a State in becoming free makes for itself bitter enemies but not
warm friends. All become its bitter enemies who, drawing their support
from the wealth of the tyrant, flourished under his government. For
these men, when the causes which made them powerful are withdrawn, can
no longer live contented, but are one and all impelled to attempt the
restoration of the tyranny in hopes of regaining their former
importance. On the other hand, as I have said, the State which becomes
free does not gain for itself warm friends. For a free government
bestows its honours and rewards in accordance with certain fixed rules,
and on considerations of merit, without which none is honoured or
rewarded. But when a man obtains only those honours or rewards which he
seems to himself to deserve, he will never admit that he is under any
obligation to those who bestow them. Moreover the common benefits that
all derive from a free government, which consist in the power to enjoy
what is our own, openly and undisturbed, in having to feel no anxiety
for the honour of wife or child, nor any fear for personal safety, are
hardly recognized by men while they still possess them, since none will
ever confess obligation to him who merely refrains from injury. For
these reasons, I repeat, a State which has recently become free, is
likely to have bitter enemies and no warm friends.
Now, to meet these difficulties and their attendant disorders, there is
no more potent, effectual, wholesome, and necessary remedy than _to
slay the sons of Brutus_. They, as the historian tells us, were along
with other young Romans led to conspire against their country, simply
because the unusual privileges which they had enjoyed under the kings,
were withheld under the consuls; so that to them it seemed as though
the freedom of the people implied their servitude. Any one, therefore,
who undertakes to control a people, either as their prince or as the
head of a commonwealth, and does not make sure work with all who are
hostile to his new institutions, founds a government which cannot last
long. Undoubtedly those princes are to be reckoned unhappy, who, to
secure their position, are forced to advance by unusual and irregular
paths, and with the people for their enemies. For while he who has to
deal with a few adversaries only, can easily and without much or
serious difficulty secure himself, he who has an entire people against
him can never feel safe and the greater the severity he uses the weaker
his authority becomes; so that his best course is to strive to make the
people his friends.
But since these views may seem to conflict with what I have said above,
treating there of a republic and here of a prince, that I may not have
to return to the subject again, I will in this place discuss it
briefly. Speaking, then of those princes who have become the tyrants of
their country, I say that the prince who seeks to gain over an
unfriendly people should first of all examine what it is the people
really desire, and he will always find that they desire two things:
first, to be revenged upon those who are the cause of their servitude;
and second, to regain their freedom. The first of these desires the
prince can gratify wholly, the second in part. As regards the former,
we have an instance exactly in point. Clearchus, tyrant of Heraclea,
being in exile, it so happened that on a feud arising between the
commons and the nobles of that city, the latter, perceiving they were
weaker than their adversaries, began to look with favour on Clearchus,
and conspiring with him, in opposition to the popular voice recalled
him to Heraclea and deprived the people of their freedom. Clearchus
finding himself thus placed between the arrogance of the nobles, whom
he could in no way either satisfy or correct, and the fury of the
people, who could not put up with the loss of their freedom, resolved
to rid himself at a stroke from the harassment of the nobles and
recommend himself to the people. Wherefore, watching his opportunity,
he caused all the nobles to be put to death, and thus, to the extreme
delight of the people, satisfied one of those desires by which they are
possessed, namely, the desire for vengeance.
As for the other desire of the people, namely, to recover their
freedom, the prince, since he never can content them in this, should
examine what the causes are which make them long to be free; and he
will find a very few of them desiring freedom that they may obtain
power, but all the rest, whose number is countless, only desiring it
that they may live securely. For in all republics, whatever the form of
their government, barely forty or fifty citizens have any place in the
direction of affairs; who, from their number being so small, can easily
be reckoned with, either by making away with them, or by allowing them
such a share of honours as, looking to their position, may reasonably
content them. All those others whose sole aim it is to live safely, are
well contented where the prince enacts such laws and ordinances as
provide for the general security, while they establish his own
authority; and when he does this, and the people see that nothing
induces him to violate these laws, they soon begin to live happily and
without anxiety. Of this we have an example in the kingdom of France,
which enjoys perfect security from this cause alone, that its kings are
bound to compliance with an infinity of laws upon which the well-being
of the whole people depends. And he who gave this State its
constitution allowed its kings to do as they pleased as regards arms
and money; but provided that as regards everything else they should not
interfere save as the laws might direct. Those rulers, therefore, who
omit to provide sufficiently for the safety of their government at the
outset, must, like the Romans, do so on the first occasion which
offers; and whoever lets the occasion slip, will repent too late of not
having acted as he should. The Romans, however, being still uncorrupted
at the time when they recovered their freedom, were able, after slaying
the sons of Brutus and getting rid of the Tarquins, to maintain it with
all those safeguards and remedies which we have elsewhere considered.
But had they already become corrupted, no remedy could have been found,
either in Rome or out of it, by which their freedom could have been
secured; as I shall show in the following Chapter.