Lysander Spooner Quotes

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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 any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government.

Lysander Spooner

Character, Men, Rights

Lysander Spooner (1867). “No Treason: No. 1-”, p.7

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The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.

Lysander Spooner

Men, Facts, Threat

Lysander Spooner (1972). “Let's Abolish Government”, Ayer Company Pub

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If any man's money can be taken by a so-called government, without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can, and will, hire soldiers to stand over him, compel him to submit to its arbitrary will, and kill him if he resists.

Lysander Spooner

Taken, Men, Rights

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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The apology, that is constantly put forth for the injustice of government, viz., that a man must consent to give up some of his rights, in order to have his other rights protected - involves a palpable absurdity, both legally and politically.

Lysander Spooner

Giving Up, Apology, Men

Lysander Spooner (1845). “The Unconstitutionality of Slavery”, p.21

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A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.

Lysander Spooner

Freedom, Men, Years

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

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Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.

Lysander Spooner

Reality, Government, Assuming

Lysander Spooner (1847). “The unconstitutionality of slavery: including parts first and second”, p.153

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Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it.

Lysander Spooner

Perjury, Tyranny, Capable

Lysander Spooner (2004). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.9, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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Taking a man's money without his consent, is also as much robbery, when it is done by millions of men, acting in concert, and calling themselves a government, as when it is done by a single individual, acting on his own responsibility, and calling himself a highwayman.

Lysander Spooner

Responsibility, Men, Acting

Lysander Spooner (1852). “An Essay on the Trial by Jury”, p.222

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If taxation without consent is robbery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to have, a single honest dollar in its treasury. If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.

Lysander Spooner

Government, United States, Dollars

"Let's Abolish Government".

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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

Rights, Majority, Minorities

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

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Legally speaking, there are no such things as 'public rights,' as distinguished from individual rights. Legally speaking, there is no such creature or thing as 'the public.'

Lysander Spooner

Rights, Individual, Distinguished

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

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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.

Lysander Spooner

Government, Support, Essentials

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

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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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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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No government knows any limits to its power except the endurance of the people.

Lysander Spooner

Power, Government, People

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

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To deprive mankind of their natural right and power of creating wealth for themselves, is as great a tyranny as it is to rob them of it after they have created it. And this is done by all laws against honest banking.

Lysander Spooner

Law, Creating, Banking

Lysander Spooner (1873). “A New Banking System: the Needful Capital for Rebuilding the Burnt District”, p.51

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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.

Lysander Spooner

Men, Rights, Self

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

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A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases.

Lysander Spooner

Men, Practice, Special

Lysander Spooner (1867). “No Treason: No. 1-”, p.15

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Any rule, not existing in the nature of things, or that is not permanent, universal and inflexible in its application, is no law, according to any correct definition of the term law.

Lysander Spooner

Law, Definitions, Term

Lysander Spooner (1845). “The Unconstitutionality of Slavery”, p.6

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And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract—the Constitution—made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three generations of men, consisting of many millions, and which (it is claimed) will be binding upon all the millions that are to come; but which nobody ever signed, sealed, delivered, witnessed, or acknowledged; and which few persons, compared with the whole number that are claimed to be bound by it, have ever read, or even seen, or ever will read, or see.

Lysander Spooner

Men, Years, Numbers

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

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Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.

Lysander Spooner

Men, Vices, Crime

Lysander Spooner (2006). “Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty”, p.1, ReadHowYouWant.com

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For everybody has a natural right not only to defend his own person and property against aggressors, but also to go to the assistance and defence of everybody else, whose person or property is invaded. The natural right of each individual to defend his own person and property against an aggressor, and to go to the assistance and defence of every one else whose person or property is invaded, is a right without which men could not exist on earth.

Lysander Spooner

Men, Earth, Citizenship

"Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty".

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The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.

Lysander Spooner

War, Men, Support

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

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The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that-however bloody-can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.

Lysander Spooner

Men, Two, Long

Lysander Spooner (1867). “No Treason: No. 1-”, p.9

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The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this - that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot.

Lysander Spooner

Government, Ideas, Shots

Lysander Spooner (1972). “Let's Abolish Government”, Ayer Company Pub

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Born: January 19, 1808
Died: May 14, 1887
Occupation: Philosopher
Cite this Page: Citation

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