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Any 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.

Any 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.

Approximate author period: c. 1847 AD · industrial

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Lysander Spooner
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1847 AD · industrial
Approximate period for the recorded attribution to Lysander Spooner, based on documented lifetime 1808 to 1887. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q538091 (checked 2026-10-08). This is not a quotation composition date or independent authentication of its attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q538091 (accessed 2026-10-08).
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 485232; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.