[19]
Was any motion made? was any
extraordinary investigation voted? But if any circumstance, if any man, if
any occasion was ever important enough for such a step, certainly all these
things were so in the greatest degree in that cause. The assassin had been
stationed in the forum, and in the very vestibule of the senate. Death was
being prepared for that man on whose life the safety of the senate depended.
Moreover, at that crisis of the republic, when, if he alone had died, not
only this state, but all the nations in the world would have been ruined,
—unless, indeed, the crime was not to be punished because it was
not accomplished, just as if the execution of crimes was chastised by the
laws, and not the intentions of men,—certainly there was less
cause to grieve, as the deed was not accomplished, but certainly not a whit
the less cause to punish.
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