01c. 1847 ADAnd yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract—the Constitution—made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three generations of men, consisting of many millions, and which (it is claimed) will be binding upon all the millions that are to come; but which nobody ever signed, sealed, delivered, witnessed, or acknowledged; and which few persons, compared with the whole number that are claimed to be bound by it, have ever read, or even seen, or ever will read, or see.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
02c. 1847 ADIf there be such a principle as justice, or natural law, it is the principle, or law, that tells us what rights were given to every human being at his birth; what rights are, therefore, inherent in him as a human being, necessarily remain with him during life; and, however capable of being trampled upon, are incapable of being blotted out, extinguished, annihilated, or separated or eliminated from his nature as a human being, or deprived of their inherent authority or obligation.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
03c. 1847 ADIf any man's money can be taken by a so-called government, without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can, and will, hire soldiers to stand over him, compel him to submit to its arbitrary will, and kill him if he resists.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
04c. 1847 ADNo man can rightfully be required to join, or support, an association whose protection he does not desire.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
05c. 1847 ADThe only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this--that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
06c. 1847 ADA man's natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime; whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, or by millions calling themselves a government.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
07c. 1847 ADIf taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
08c. 1847 ADThe fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life...The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber...Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
09c. 1847 ADThose who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
10c. 1847 ADIf the jury have no right to judge of the justice of a law of the government, they plainly can do nothing to protect the people against the oppressions of the government; for there are no oppressions which the government may not authorize by law.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
11c. 1847 ADMartyrdom is evidence only of a man's honesty - it is no evidence that he is not mistaken. Men have suffered martyrdom for all sorts of opinions in politics and in religion yet they could not therefore have all been in the right although they could give no stronger evidence that they believed themselves in the right.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
12c. 1847 ADLegally speaking, the term 'public rights' is as vague and indefinite as are the terms 'public health,' 'public good,' 'public welfare,' and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to describe the separate, private, individual rights of a greater or less number of individuals.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
13c. 1847 ADThat no government, so called, can reasonably be trusted, or reasonably be supposed to have honest purposes in view, any longer than it depends wholly upon voluntary support.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
14c. 1847 ADThe only security men can have for their political liberty, consists in keeping their money in their own pockets.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
15c. 1847 ADA traitor is a betrayer - one who practices injury, while professing friendship. Benedict Arnold was a traitor, solely because, while professing friendship for the American cause, he attempted to injure it. An open enemy, however criminal in other respects, is no traitor.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
16c. 1847 ADIf taxation without consent is robbery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to have, a single honest dollar in its treasury. If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
17c. 1847 ADA man's natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, (or by any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
18c. 1847 ADThe trial by jury might safely be introduced into a despotic government, if the jury were to exercise no right of judging of the law, or the justice of the law.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
19c. 1847 ADThe trial by jury is a trial by 'the country,' in contradistinction to a trial by the government. The jurors are drawn by lot from the mass of the people, for the very purpose of having all classes of minds and feelings, that prevail among the people at large, represented in the jury.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
20c. 1847 ADA slave government is an oligarchy; and one, too, of the most arbitrary and criminal character.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
21c. 1847 ADBut whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
22c. 1847 ADThe right of revolution, which tyrants, in mockery, accord to mankind, is no legal right under a government; it is only a natural right to overturn a government.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
23c. 1847 ADAny government, that is its own judge of, and determines authoritatively for the people, what are its own powers over the people, is an absolute government of course. It has all the powers that it chooses to exercise. There is no other or at least no more accurate definition of a despotism than this.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
24c. 1847 ADIt is manifest that the only security against the tyranny of the government lies in forcible resistance to the execution of the injustice; because the injustice will certainly be executed, unless it be forcibly resisted.Lysander Spooner / quote ↗
