Summary Of The Discourses By Niccolo Machiavelli

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Machiavelli: Republic and Principality Best Fit for the People Niccolo Machiavelli is one of the most influential political thinkers of all time. In his two works, The Prince and The Discourses, he presents ways to successfully form and run both a Republic and a Principality by tying them with the fate to the people. In The Prince, Machiavelli discusses how a ruler can gain power regardless of his morals. While in The Discourses, he talks about how the public should be implemented into a democratic governing system, as well as how institutions could work in the best possible way. Even though Republic and Principalities are two different entities, the consistency between the two holds true through the constitutional principality described in …show more content…
This story involves Pacuvius Calavius, the chief magistrate of the city, attempt to settle the dispute between these two groups and help restore order within the republic. This lesson involves the clash between these two respective entities and their mutual distrust towards each other. They both feel as if they will be fine to govern without one another and they should do away with the opposition. When discussing the ground rules for doing away with the nobility, Calavuis picks a noble’s name out of a hat and whoever’s name may come up must be killed and the plebs must replace him with one of their own. He states “On hearing the man’s name an uproar was raised, and they called him a proud and cruel and arrogant fellow (the noble). Pacuvius then called on them to appoint someone in his stead; whereupon the shouting subsided altogether, and after a pause one of the plebs was nominated. At his name some began to hiss, some to laugh, some to abuse him in one way and some in another. And so it went on, time upon time, till all who had been nominated had been judged to be unworthy of senatorial rank.” The populace makes a generalization about the senate being weak and that they were worthy of delegation because of their strength in numbers , but when asked to make a particular decision about who should

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