CHAPTER VII.: the reasons why the transitions from liberty to servitude and from servitude to liberty are at times effected without bloodshed, and at other times are most sanguinary.

The question may suggest itself to some persons why it is that, in the many changes that carry a state from freedom to

tyranny, and from servitude to liberty, some are effected by bloodshed, and others without any. In fact, history shows that in such changes sometimes an infinite number of lives are sacrificed; whilst at other times it has not cost the life of a single person. Such was the revolution in Rome which transferred the government from the kings to the consuls, where only the Tarquins were expelled, and no one else suffered injury. This depends upon whether the state that changes its form of government does so by violence, or not. When effected by violence the change will naturally inflict suffering upon many; these in turn will desire to revenge themselves, and from this desire of revenge results the shedding of blood. But when such a change is effected by the general consent of the citizens, who have made the state great, then there is no reason why the people should wish to harm any one but the chiefs of the state. Such was the case with the government of the kings in Rome, and the expulsion of the Tarquins; and such was that of the Medici in Florence, whose ruin and expulsion in the year 1494 involved none but themselves. Such revolutions are very rarely dangerous. But those that are effected by men from motives of revenge are most dangerous, and have ever been of a nature to make us tremble with fear and horror in reading of them. History is so full of these that I will not dilate upon them here.