On the Crown

but inasmuch as you were present at every assembly, as the state proposed a discussion of policy in which every one might join, and as my measures were approved at the time by every one, and especially by you,—for it was in no friendly spirit that you allowed me to enjoy all the hopes and enthusiasm and credit that were attached to my policy, but obviously because truth was too strong for you, and because you had nothing better to suggest—it is most iniquitous and outrageous to stigmatize today measures which at the time you were unable to amend.

Among other people I find this sort of distinction universally observed.—A man has sinned willfully: he is visited with resentment and punishment. He has erred unintentionally: pardon takes the place of punishment. Suppose that he has committed no sin or error at all, but, having devoted himself to a project approved by all, has, in common with all, failed of success. In that case he does not deserve reproach or obloquy, but condolence.

This distinction will be found not only embodied in our statutes, but laid down by nature herself in her unwritten laws and in the moral sense of the human race. Now Aeschines so far surpasses all mankind in savagery and malignity that he turns even misadventures, which he has himself cited as such, into crimes for which I am to be denounced.

To crown all—as though all his own speeches had been made in a disinterested and patriotic spirit—he bids you be on your guard against me, for fear I should mislead and deceive you, calling me an artful speaker, a mountebank, an impostor, and so forth. He seems to think that if a man can only get in the first blow with epithets that are really applicable to himself, they must be true, and the audience will make no reflections on the character of the speaker.