There May Be A Hundred Thousand Men

Machiavel, Discoursing On These Matters, Finds Virtue To Be So Essentially Necessary To The Establishment And Preservation Of Liberty, That He Thinks It Impossible For A Corrupted People To Set Up A Good Government, Or For A Tyranny To Be Introduced If They Be Virtuous; And Makes This Conclusion, 'that Where The Matter (that Is, The Body Of The People) Is Not Corrupted, Tumults And Disorders Do Not Hurt; And Where It Is Corrupted, Good Laws Do No Good:' Which Being Confirmed By Reason And Experience, I Think No Wise Man Has Ever Contradicted Him.

[i]f Vice And Corruption Prevail, Liberty Cannot Subsist; But If Virtue Have The Advantage, Arbitrary Power Cannot Be Established.

We Cannot Distinguish Truth From Falsehood, Right From Wrong, Or Know What Obedience We Owe To The Magistrate, Or What We May Justly Expect From Him, Unless We Know What He Is, Why He Is, And By Whom He Is Made To Be What He Is.... I Cannot Know How To Obey Unless I Know In What, And To Whom; Nor In What Unless I Know What Ought To Be Commanded; Nor What Ought To Be Commanded Unless I Understand The Original Right Of The Commander, Which Is The Great Arcanum.

The Only Ends For Which Governments Are Constituted, And Obedience Rendered To Them, Are The Obtaining Of And Protection; And They Who Cannot Provide For Both Give The People A Right Of Taking Such Ways As Best Please Themselves, In Order To Their Own Safety.

[a]ll Popular And Well-mixed Governments [republics] . . . Are Ever Established By Wise And Good Men, And Can Never Be Upheld Otherwise Than By Virtue: The Worst Men Always Conspiring Against Them, They Must Fall, If The Best Have Not Power To Preserve Them. . . . [and] Unless They Be Preserved In A Great Measure Free From Vices . . . .