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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

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Lysander Spooner
Age: 79 †
Born: 1808
Born: January 19
Died: 1887
Died: May 14
Anarchist
Businessperson
Essayist
Journalist
Lawyer
Opinion Journalist
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Particular
Arbitrary
Unreservedly
Special
Oppression
Oppressions
Pleasure
Hang
Traitors
Practice
Shoot
Accuse
Government
Surrender
Refusing
Men
Property
Offence
General
Traitor
Please
Pleases

More quotes by Lysander Spooner

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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
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To measure prices by a currency that is called by the same names as gold, but that is really inferior in value to gold, and then - because those prices are nominally higher than gold prices - to say that they are inflated, relatively to gold, is a perfect absurdity.
Lysander Spooner
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It is manifest that the only security against the tyranny of the government lies in forcible resistance to the execution of the injustice because the injustice will certainly be executed, unless it be forcibly resisted.
Lysander Spooner
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Doubtless the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive government in the world, if allowed the ballot, would use it, if they could see any chance of thereby ameliorating their condition.
Lysander Spooner
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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
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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
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Money is the great instrumentality for manufacturing.
Lysander Spooner
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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
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Vices are not crimes.
Lysander Spooner
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There can be no criminal intent in resisting injustice.
Lysander Spooner
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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
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The trial by jury is a trial by 'the country,' in contradistinction to a trial by the government. The jurors are drawn by lot from the mass of the people, for the very purpose of having all classes of minds and feelings, that prevail among the people at large, represented in the jury.
Lysander Spooner
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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
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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
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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
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The imaginations of believers have dressed up and exaggerated the excellence of the style and matter of the New Testament generally, in the same manner, in which they have the moral instructions of Jesus.
Lysander Spooner
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The number who actually consented to the Constitution of the United States, at the first, was very small. Considered as the act of the whole people, the adoption of the Constitution was the merest farce and imposture, binding upon nobody.
Lysander Spooner
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Children learn many principles of natural law at a very early age. For example: they learn that when one child has picked up an apple or a flower, it is his, and that his associates must not take it from him against his will.
Lysander Spooner
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It cannot be said that the Constitution formed 'the people of the United States,' for all time, into a corporation. It does not speak of 'the people' as a corporation, but as individuals. A corporation does not describe itself as 'we,' nor as 'people,' nor as 'ourselves.' Nor does a corporation, in legal language, have any 'posterity.'
Lysander Spooner
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If it be said that the consent of the strongest party in a nation, is all that is necessary to justify the establishment of a government that shall have authority over the weaker party, it may be answered that the most despotic governments in the world rest upon that very principle, viz.: the consent of the strongest party.
Lysander Spooner