Lysander Spooner Quotes About Judging

Quotes about: Judging

• Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenseless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will perform them.

  Lysander Spooner

  Men, Sick, Judging

  Lysander Spooner (1882). “Natural Law, Or, The Science of Justice: A Treatise on Natural Law, Natural Justice, Natural Rights, Natural Liberty, and Natural Society : Showing that All Legislation Whatsoever is an Absurdity, a Usurpation, and a Crime”

• If 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

  Government, Law, People

  Lysander Spooner (2004). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.4, The Minerva Group, Inc.

• There has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the power and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what is the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their power, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and find all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws.

  Lysander Spooner

  Life, War, Law

• 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.

  Lysander Spooner

  Exercise, Government, People

  Lysander Spooner (1971). “The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner: Legal writings”

• If a jury have not the right to judge between the government and those who disobey its laws, and resist its oppressions, the government is absolute, and the people, legally speaking, are slaves.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, Law, People

  Lysander Spooner (2004). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.11, The Minerva Group, Inc.

• The 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

  Exercise, Government, Law

  Lysander Spooner, Charles Shively (1971). “The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner: Anti-slavery writings”

• But for their right to judge of the law, and the justice of the law, juries would be no protection to an accused person, even as to matters of fact; for, if the government can dictate to a jury any law whatever, in a criminal case, it can certainly dictate to them the laws of evidence.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, Law, Justice

  Lysander Spooner (2004). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.1, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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