Lysander Spooner Quotes - Page 3

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• No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave.

  Lysander Spooner

  War, Men, Self

  Lysander Spooner (1867). “No Treason: No. 1-”, p.3

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• 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.

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• The mental capacity of a person to make reasonable contracts, is the only criterion, by which to determine his legal capacity to make obligatory contracts. And his mental capacity to make reasonable contracts is certainly not to be determined by the fact that he is, or is not, twenty-one years of age.

  Lysander Spooner

  Years, Age, Twenties

  Lysander Spooner (1886). “A Letter to Grover Cleveland on His False Inaugural Address, the Usurpation and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People”

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• If our fathers, in 1776, had acknowledged the principle that a majority had the right to rule the minority, we should never have become a nation; for they were in a small minority, as compared with those who claimed the right to rule over them.

  Lysander Spooner

  Father, America, Historical

  Lysander Spooner (1867). “No Treason: No. 1-”, p.8

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• Now a slave is not 'held' by any legal contract, obligation, duty, or authority, which the laws will enforce. He is 'held' only by brute force. One person beats another until the latter will obey him, work for him, if he require it, or do nothing if he require it.

  Lysander Spooner

  Law, Slave, Authority

  Lysander Spooner (1850). “A Defence for Fugitive Slaves”, p.51

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• If those persons, who fancy themselves gifted with both the power and the right to define and punish other men's vices, would but turn their thoughts inwardly, they would probably find that they have a great work to do at home; and that, when that shall have been completed, they will be little disposed to do more towards correcting the vices of others, than simply to give to others the results of their experience and observation.

  Lysander Spooner

  Home, Men, Giving

  Lysander Spooner (2006). “Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty”, p.16, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• 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”

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• But that the people are stronger than the government, and will resist in extreme cases, our governments would be little or nothing else than organized systems of plunder and oppression.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, People, Stronger

  Lysander Spooner (2004). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.13, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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• Martyrdom 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

  Honesty, Men, Giving

  Lysander SPOONER (1836). “The Deist's Reply to the Alleged Supernatural Evidences of Christianity, Etc”, p.6

  7 Copy quote

• No body of men can be said to authorize a man to act as their agent, to the injury of a third person.

  Lysander Spooner

  Men, Agents, Body

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

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• The secret ballot makes a secret government; and a secret government is a secret band of robbers and murderers.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, Secret, Band

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

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• All, or nearly all, the advantage there is in fixing any constitutional limits to the power of a government, is simply to give notice to the government of the point at which it will meet with resistance.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, Giving, Limits

  Lysander Spooner (1852). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.19

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• Legally 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

  Rights, Numbers, Welfare

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

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• Those who deny the right of a jury to protect an individual in resisting an unjust law of the government, deny him all defence whatsoever against oppression.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, Law, Unjust

  Lysander Spooner (2004). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.10, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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• Any number of scoundrels, having money enough to start with, can establish themselves as a 'government'; because, with money, they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort more money; and also compel general obedience to their will.

  Lysander Spooner

  Government, Numbers, Soldier

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

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• It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men's property, which they had not before, as individuals. And whenever any number of men, calling themselves a government, do anything to another man, or to his property, which they had no right to do as individuals, they thereby declare themselves trespassers, robbers, or murderers, according to the nature of their acts.

  Lysander Spooner

  Men, Rights, Self

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• That 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

  Government, Views, Support

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

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• Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can be legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction.

  Lysander Spooner

  Law, Giving, Slavery

  Lysander Spooner (1845). “The Unconstitutionality of Slavery”, p.36

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• For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be a falsehood, or falsehood a truth.

  Lysander Spooner

  Truth, Government, Vices

  Lysander Spooner (2006). “Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty”, p.2, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• 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

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• The commerce of a free people is many times more valuable than that of slaves. Freemen produce and consume vastly more than slaves. They have therefore more to buy and more to sell. Hence the free states have a direct pecuniary interest in the civil freedom of all the other states. Commerce between free and slave states is not reciprocal or equal.

  Lysander Spooner

  People, Slave, States

  Lysander Spooner (1845). “The Unconstitutionality of Slavery”, p.130

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• 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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• The 'nations,' as they are called, with whom our pretended ambassadors, secretaries, presidents, and senators profess to make treaties, are as much myths as our own. On general principles of law and reason, there are no such 'nations.' ... Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades.

  Lysander Spooner

  Kings, Moon, Men

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

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• The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing.

  Lysander Spooner

  Men, Doe, Constitution

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

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• A 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

  Practice, Enemy, Criminals

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

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