Explore "Discourses on Livy" by Niccolò Machiavelli on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
How a free government existing in a corrupt city may be preserved, or not existing may be created.
I think it neither out of place, nor inconsistent with what has been said above, to consider whether a free government existing in a corrupt city can be maintained, or, not existing, can be introduced. And on this head I say that it is very difficult to bring about either of these results, and next to impossible to lay down rules as to how it may be done; because the measures to be taken must vary with the degree of corruption which prevails.