Against Aristogeiton II

Neither you nor your ancestors ever repented of observing these rules, for it is the salvation of democracy that it overcomes its enemies either by good counsel or by arms, but submits to its laws either by free choice or under constraint; and that this principle is sound, is allowed even by the defendant himself.

For after the disasters to the Greek forces at Chaeroneia, when the very foundations of our State were threatened with the utmost danger, when Hypereides proposed that the disfranchised citizens should be reinstated in order that, if any such danger should menace our State, all classes might unite wholeheartedly in the struggle for liberty, the defendant indicted this decree as unconstitutional and conducted his case in court.

But is it not monstrous that, where the safety of the State is involved, the defendant should allow none of his fellow-citizens to obtain enfranchisement, but should claim that same favour from you all, in order to cover his own lawlessness? Yet the former vote, Aristogeiton, was far more lawful and equitable than the vote which you now require the jurors to cast in your favour.