What else is this but saying, Because ye will not of your own choice elect unworthy persons, I will impose on you the necessity of electing persons whom you do not wish?
What follows, but that if one plebeian stand candidate with two patricians, he owes no obligation to the people, and may say that he was appointed by the law, not by suffrages?
41.

"How they may extort, not how they may sue for honours, is what they seek: and they are anxious to attain the highest honour, so that they may not owe the obligations incurred even for the lowest; and they prefer to sue for honours rather through favourable conjunctures than by merit.

Is there any one who can feel it an affront to have himself inspected and estimated; who thinks it reasonable that to himself alone, amidst struggling competitors, honours should be certain?
who would withdraw himself from your judgment?
who would make your suffrages necessary instead of voluntary; servile instead of free?
I omit mention of Licinius and Sextius, whose years of perpetuated power ye number, as that of the kings in the Capitol; who is there this day in the state so mean, to whom the road to the consulate is not rendered easier through the advantages of that law, than to us and to our children?
inasmuch as you will sometimes not be able to elect us even though you may wish it; those persons you must elect, even though you were unwilling.

Of the insult offered to merit enough has been said (for merit appertains to human beings); what shall I say respecting religion and the auspices, which is contempt and injustice relating exclusively to the immortal gods?
Who is there who does not know that this city was built by auspices, that all things are conducted by auspices during war and peace, at home and abroad?
In whom therefore are the auspices vested according to the usage of our forefathers?
In the patricians, no doubt; for no plebeian magistrate is ever elected by auspices.

So peculiar to us are the auspices, that not only do the people elect in no other manner, save by auspices, the patrician magistrates whom they do elect, but even we ourselves, without the suffrages of the people, appoint the interrex by auspices, and in our private station we hold those auspices, which they do not hold even in office.