Constitutions are preserved when their destroyers are at a distance,
and sometimes also because they are near, for the fear of them makes
the government keep in hand the constitution. Wherefore the ruler
who has a care of the constitution should invent terrors, and bring
distant dangers near, in order that the citizens may be on their
guard, and, like sentinels in a night watch, never relax their
attention. He should endeavor too by help of the laws to control the
contentions and quarrels of the notables, and to prevent those who
have not hitherto taken part in them from catching the spirit of
contention. No ordinary man can discern the beginning of evil, but
only the true statesman.
As to the change produced in oligarchies and constitutional
governments by the alteration of the qualification, when this
arises, not out of any variation in the qualification but only out
of the increase of money, it is well to compare the general
valuation of property with that of past years, annually in those
cities in which the census is taken annually and in larger cities
every third or fifth year. If the whole is many times greater or
many times less than when the ratings recognized by the constitution
were fixed, there should be power given by law to raise or lower the
qualification as the amount is greater or less.
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