Here is the last consideration. I have hesitated to present it, for I would not be accused of advising cowardice; and yet I will set it down—for it is true. Formerly the depositaries of power, ministers or others, risked in political struggles their life as well as position. It was the necessity of the time that such combats should always have a revolutionary character, and that no one could retire from them vanquished to find security in repose. The constitutional system and public manners have changed this gloomy condition of public men; they may now fall without danger, and even re-enter the lists for the recovery of their power. The people are better governed, and the governors more safe. May nothing alter this new aspect of political life! Ministers would deceive themselves did they think to shake off the responsibility which rests upon them by disputing its limits. When facts become serious, and the gravest interests are compromised, then subtilties lose their empire; everything is decided with simplicity, and they answer in their whole conduct for all the counsels they have given or omitted. I know that such a prospect, presenting itself to the eyes of a public man, should not induce him to relax in his duties: it should rather teach him the obligation to look well about him; not to believe lightly in pretended necessities, or to satisfy himself in the days of his power with such frivolous excuses as have no value when those days are past; to reduce as far as in him lies that circle of political death-punishment already so happily contracted; and, in short, to employ to this end, in his function of counsellor to the throne, the whole force which his responsibility lends him.
Chapter XI.
Conclusion.
Before concluding, I have read again that treatise in which it is said we may discover the deepest and most odious secrets of tyranny—the treatise of The Prince; and I have found a passage which I wish to quote. In its expressions, and even ideas, it belongs rather to the manners and policy of the sixteenth century than to our own; it speaks more especially of personal enmities and treasons, of assassinations and political perils which belong more to the ferocious struggles of personal ambition than to the clashing of general interests or contending systems of government. However, it is good to know what was thought of conspiracies and their importance by a great man, who, living in the midst of punishments and factions, an unmoved observer of facts and their results, undertook to teach governments by what prudence they might surmount such casualties.
'One of the most powerful safeguards,' says Machiavel, 'that a prince can have against conspiracies, is to be neither hated nor despised by the mass. The man who conspires believes always that, by the death of the prince, he will satisfy the people; but if, on the contrary, he thinks it would offend them, he will not have the courage to go forward, for the difficulties which surround conspirators are infinite. We know by experience that there have been many conspiracies, but few that have succeeded. He who conspires cannot do so alone, nor choose his companions but among those whom he supposes to be discontented. But when you have intrusted your secret to a malcontent, you have furnished him with the means of throwing off this character, for, by revealing the design, he may hope for every kind of profit. Seeing, on the one hand, the profit certain, and on the other nothing but doubts and perils, he must be a rare friend indeed, or else a very obstinate enemy of the prince, to keep faith with you. Reducing the thing to the most simple terms, I say that, on the side of the conspirators, all is fear, mistrust, and dread of chastisement; while on that of the prince are the majesty of power and of the laws, and the strength of his friends and of the state. When to all this is joined the good-will of the public, it is impossible for any one to have the temerity to conspire. In ordinary cases, a conspirator has much to fear before the perpetration of the crime; but here he has to fear even after it; for, the crime accomplished, he will have the people for enemies, and so can hope for no refuge. A number of examples on this point might be given, but I will content myself with one which occurred in the time of our fathers. Annibal Bentivoglio, who governed Bologna, having been assassinated by the Canneschi in a conspiracy, and leaving no heir but John, who was still an infant, the people rose after the murder and massacred all the Canneschi, an effect of the popular good-will enjoyed at that time by the family of Bentivoglio. … From this I conclude that a prince has little to fear from conspiracies, if he enjoys the good-will of the people; but that, if the people are his enemies, he has to fear everything and every citizen.' [Footnote 18]
[Footnote 18: Il Principe, c. xix.; Opere di Nic, Macchiavelli, t. vi. pp. 316-318.]
I would not be so confident as Machiavel, nor go so far as to say that the popularity of power is enough to discourage the audacity of conspirators. But if, in the sixteenth century, the most profound adept in Italian policy thought that the strength of power against conspiracies resided not in its punishments, but in the satisfaction of general interests, and the relation borne to them by the system of government, how will it be in our own day? Machiavel found conspiracies very difficult to deal with, and capital punishments very insufficient when power was not popular; and now, when the question is to stir up the masses to a struggle against the powerful organisation of great governments, would conspirators have fewer obstacles to contend with? Would capital punishments have more virtue? I have already answered the question. The tasks of justice and policy are distinct, more so than they ever were, and the one cannot supply the place of the other. If policy is not equal to its own, or if it is ignorant of, or offends the public will, in vain would it summon to its assistance punishments against individuals. Punishments may destroy men, but they can neither change the interests nor sentiments of the people. But what do I wish? Neither effeminacy nor impunity. To combat a useless rigour, I have merely gathered these facts together, and have shown that against moral dangers and general forces such rigour is without efficacy. The character of generality which the dangers of power now bear will be also found in these means. It may kill one or several individuals, and severely chastise one or several conspiracies; but if it can do no more than this, it will find the same perils and the same enemies always before it. If it is able to do more, let it dispense with killing, for it has no more need of it: less terrible remedies will suffice. It will see, as Machiavel says, that a government protected by public approbation stands on a vantage-ground, where conspiracies are as impotent against power as capital punishment is impotent against conspiracies.