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Men's moral principles are weak enough without their being made subordinate to selfishness and their selfishness is quite active enough, without any such effort as Christianity makes to constitute it the mainspring of all their conduct.

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
Quite
Subordinates
Effort
Constitute
Moral
Conduct
Makes
Selfishness
Without
Active
Enough
Weak
Made
Christianity
Mainspring
Men
Principles
Subordinate

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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.
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Practically and commercially speaking, a dollar is not necessarily a specific thing, made of silver, or gold, or any other single metal, or substance. It is only such a quantum of market value as exists in a given piece of silver or gold.
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Any government, that is its own judge of, and determines authoritatively for the people, what are its own powers over the people, is an absolute government of course. It has all the powers that it chooses to exercise. There is no other or at least no more accurate definition of a despotism than this.
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All legitimate government is a mutual insurance company, voluntarily agreed upon by the parties to it, for the protection of their rights against wrong-doers. In its voluntary character it is precisely similar to an association for mutual protection against fire or shipwreck.
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A slave government is an oligarchy and one, too, of the most arbitrary and criminal character.
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The desertion of Jesus, by his followers, furnishes an argument in support of the supposition that he attempted to be king of the Jews, rather than that he was a superior being.
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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
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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.
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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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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
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The constitution of the United States declares that no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts.
Lysander Spooner
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These so-called governments are in reality only great bands of robbers and murderers, organized, disciplined, and constantly on the alert.
Lysander Spooner
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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
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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
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Money is the great instrumentality for manufacturing.
Lysander Spooner
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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
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Majorities and minorities cannot rightfully be taken at all into account in deciding questions of justice.
Lysander Spooner
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The law does not require a man to cease to be a man, and act without regard to consequences, when he becomes a juror.
Lysander Spooner
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The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me.
Lysander Spooner
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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