en if a man becomes a New Prince because he is elected to that position by acclamation of the populace as a whole, he is still displacing whoever or whatever had previously held the reins of power, and he will face danger from that direction. Even in a hereditary monarchy, the Crown Prince Apparent, who succeeds to the throne upon his fatherÆs death and according to all the duly constituted laws of the land, may still face danger from those who would inherit the throne if he were not alive.
One of the most obvious differences between modern democracies and even the most democratic of the Italian republics that Machiavelli describes is not so much how people attain office, but how they leave office. Everyone now expects a defeated politician to return to private life at the end of his or her term of office without being killed or attempting to start an insurrection or to assassinate his
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