Lysander Spooner Quotes About Justice

Quotes about: Justice

• 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.

• All restraints upon man's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree.

  Lysander Spooner

  Freedom, Simple, Men

  Lysander Spooner (1973). “No Treason and a Letter to Thomas F. Bayard”

• 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

• Majorities, as such, afford no guarantees for justice. They are men of the same nature as minorities. They have the same passions for fame, power, and money, as minorities; and are liable and likely to be equally - perhaps more than equally, because more boldly - rapacious, tyrannical and unprincipled, if intrusted with power.

  Lysander Spooner

  Passion, Men, Justice

  Lysander Spooner (1971). “The collected works of Lysander Spooner”

• The very idea of law originates in men's natural rights. There is no other standard, than natural rights, by which civil law can be measured. Law has always been the name of that rule or principle of justice, which protects those rights. Thus we speak of natural law.

  Lysander Spooner

  Men, Rights, Law

  Lysander Spooner (1845). “The Unconstitutionality of Slavery”, p.7

• 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”

• Majorities and minorities cannot rightfully be taken at all into account in deciding questions of justice.

  Lysander Spooner

  Taken, Justice, Majority

  Henry Bool, Lysander Spooner, Edwin C. Walker (1972). “Individualist anarchist pamphlets”

• 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.

• If two individuals enter into a contract to commit trespass, theft, robbery or murder upon a third, the contract is unlawful and void, simply because it is a contract to violate natural justice, or men's natural rights.

  Lysander Spooner

  Men, Rights, Two

  Lysander Spooner (1847). “The unconstitutionality of slavery: including parts first and second”, p.8

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