No Treason, Vol. VI.: The Constitution of No Authority
1870
No Treason, Vol. VI.: The Constitution of No Authority
1870
The most radical critique of governmental authority ever written in America. Lysander Spooner dismantles the idea that the Constitution has any legitimate power over citizens who never consented to it. He argues that this founding document was merely a contract among people now dead, and that dead men cannot bind the living. Voting, paying taxes, even being born in America, none of these constitute genuine agreement to be governed. Spooner systematically dismantles the notion of "implied consent" and exposes how governments maintain power through coercion rather than genuine contractual obligation. This is not mere historical philosophy, it is a devastating challenge to every assumption about where political authority comes from. Over 150 years later, it remains the most articulate argument for why you owe nothing to the state. For anyone who has ever wondered whether obedience to law is truly mandatory, or merely habitual, Spooner offers an answer that refuses to comfort.
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“But 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
“And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract”
— Lysander Spooner
“A 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
“The Constitution says: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." The meaning of this is simply We, the people of the United States, acting freely and voluntarily as individuals, consent and agree that we will cooperate with each other in sustaining such a government as is provided for in this Constitution. The necessity for the consent of "the people" is implied in this declaration. The whole authority of the Constitution rests upon it. If they did not consent, it was of no validity. Of course it had no validity, except as between those who actually consented. No one's consent could be presumed against him, without his actual consent being given, any more than in the case of any other contract to pay money, or render service. And to make it binding upon any one, his signature, or other positive evidence of consent, was as necessary as in the case of any other-contract. If the instrument meant to say that any of "the people of the United States" would be bound by it, who did not consent, it was a usurpation and a lie. The most that can be inferred from the form, "We, the people," is, that the instrument offered membership to all "the people of the United States;" leaving it for them to accept or refuse it, at their pleasure.””
— Lysander Spooner
“A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. Neither are a people any the less slaves because permitted periodically to choose new masters. What makes them slaves is the fact that they now are, and are always hereafter to be, in the hands of men whose power over them is, and always is to be, absolute and irresponsible.6””
— Lysander Spooner
“To say that majorities, as such, have a right to rule minorities, is equivalent to saying that minorities have, and ought to have, no rights, except such as majorities please to allow them.””
— Lysander Spooner
“...only those who have the will and the power to shoot down their fellow men, are the real rulers in this, as in all other (so-called) civilized countries; for by no others will civilized men be robbed, or enslaved.””
— Lysander Spooner
“No middle ground is possible on this subject. Either "taxation without consent is robbery," or it is not. If it is not, then any number of men, who choose, may at any time associate; call themselves a government; assume absolute authority over all weaker than themselves; plunder them at will; and kill them if they resist.””
— Lysander Spooner
“One essential of a free government is that it rest wholly on voluntary support. And one certain proof that a government is not free, is that it coerces more or less persons to support it, against their will. All governments, the worst on earth, and the most tyrannical on earth, are free governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them. And all governments”
— Lysander Spooner
