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All these cries of having abolished slavery, of having saved the country, of having preserved the union, of establishing a government of consent, and of maintaining the national honor, are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats - so transparent that they ought to deceive no one.

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
Saved
Transparent
Cheats
Cry
Maintaining
Abolished
National
Gross
Shameless
Honor
Cheat
Establishing
Ought
Consent
Preserved
Government
Union
Deceive
Country
Unions
Cries
Slavery
Deceiving

More quotes by 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.
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Vices are not crimes.
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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 simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.
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
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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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The trial by jury might safely be introduced into a despotic government, if the jury were to exercise no right of judging of the law, or the justice of the law.
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
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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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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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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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And there is no difference, in principle - but only in degree - between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure.
Lysander Spooner
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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.
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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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
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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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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.
Lysander Spooner
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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
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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.
Lysander Spooner