Machiavelli and the Libyan Intervention

Many commentators are suggesting that the killing of Mohammar Quaddafi vindicates President Obama’s decision last spring to take America to war in Libya, without congressional authorization and without articulating any clear relationship of the mission to the defense of the United States.  This praise for the President’s policy reminds me of the following passage from Chapter 18 of Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince:

Let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar.

Is Machiavelli correct?  I don’t think so.  At least, while what he says is often true, it is not as absolutely true as he suggests.  If Machiavelli were right, the could be no constitutional government, because the people would always be perfectly indifferent to the legality of government action.  But there has been constitutional government in America and elsewhere, so it seems that some peoples have developed a concern for constitutional forms in addition to outcomes.

There is no doubting, however, that Machiavelli’s observation is generally if not universally true.  In most places and at most times, constitutional government and the rule of law have not flourished.  The kind of national character that takes such things seriously appears to be a rare and delicate plant.  And there is no doubt that those who praise the Libyan intervention because the present stage of it turned out well, but without any concern for the lack of congressional authorization, are, to the extent that their thinking influences public opinion, undermining the kind of culture that can sustain constitutional government.  They are doing what they can, intentionally or not, to make sure that in this country there is no one but the vulgar.

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