The VoluntaryistWhole Number 136 'If one takes care of the means, the end will take care of itself 1st Quarter 2008

Introduction To TheLysander Spooner Reader

By George H. SmithI.

Somewhere, sometime a person will open this booknot knowing what to expect, but curious about a manwith the curious name of Lysander Spooner. I envythat reader, for that was me nearly twenty-five yearsago when I encountered No Treason: The Constitu-tion of No Authority. I could scarcely believe my eyes.Here were ideas radical yet commonsensical, sub-versive yet quintessentially American. Spooner chal-lenged and excited me. Such experiences are rarebecause truly original thinkers are rare, and you candiscover them but once.

Alas, my days of innocent discovery are over, thecasualty of too much reading. I have read libertar-ian writers so obscure that even obscure libertarianshave never heard of them. I doubt if my future holdsmany surprises, but it does hold many pleasures. Thisis one of them: introducing others to LysanderSpooner.

Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) was one of thegreatest libertarian theorists of the nineteenth (orany other) century and a founding father of themodern movement. He was radical to the bone, a non-conformist among nonconformists who refused to toeany party line.

Trained as a lawyer, Spooner often wrote like alawyer, citing precedents, statutes, and legal authori-ties. This legalistic style enshrouds some of his workswith a dry, forbidding appearance. But huddledamong his legal arguments are passages of literaryand philosophic brilliance.

Spooner was no ordinary lawyer. He cited theConstitution when he believed it conformed withnatural law; this led him to assert the unconstitu-tionality of chartered banks, a monopolistic post of-fice, legal tender laws, slavery, and other offensesagainst liberty. In the final analysis, however, Spoonercondemned the Constitution as possessing "no au-thority," and this distinguished him from many radi-cals of his day. He espoused individualist- anarchism(in substance if not in name), a radical no-govern-ment philosophy with roots deep in American his-tory—Native American Anarchism, as EuniceSchuster has called it.[l]

For Spooner, natural law and its corollary, natu-ral rights, are the foundation of a free and just society.

He was an unterrified Jeffersonian who refused tocompromise the principles expressed in the Declara-tion of Independence. If man is endowed with inalien-able rights, then no one, including government,should violate them. If government requires the con-sent of the governed, then a legitimate governmentmust acquire the explicit consent of every person inits jurisdiction. If the people have a right to resistusurpations and the right to overthrow tyrannicalgovernments, then these rights may be enforcedagainst the American government.

If such principles make it difficult for governmentsto function, then, as Spooner saw the matter, so muchthe better. Government is a standing threat to lib-erty, peace, prosperity, and social order.

Spooner's contempt for government was rivaledonly by his contempt for fellow libertarians who com-promised their principles under cover of expediency.Pure justice is a thing of beauty, and Spooner couldnot abide those who knowingly defaced it. Where oth-ers saw expediency, Spooner saw only cowardice orbetrayal or ambition masquerading as practicality.

II.Lysander Spooner, the second of nine children, was

born in 1808 on a farm near Athol, Massachusetts.Spooner discharged his financial obligations to hisfather by working on a farm for nine years; then, atage twenty-five, he moved to nearby Worcester toprepare for a career in law. [2]

In 1835, Spooner set up his own legal practice,thereby violating a Massachusetts law that requireda five year apprenticeship for prospective lawyerswithout college degrees. In his first political tract(appearing in the Worcester Republican), Spoonerprotested the apprenticeship law and expressed adisdain for governmental intervention that wouldcharacterize his entire career.

According to Spooner, the five-year apprenticeshiplaw was meant to exclude "the well-educated poor"from the legal profession and shield those "educatedin comparative ease and plenty" (many of whom "areunfit for the profession") from the effects of competi-tion. Spooner continues:

The truth is that legislatures and Courts havemade lawyers a privileged class, and have thusgiven them facilities, of which they have availedthemselves, for entering into combinations hos-tile, at least to the interests, if not to the rights,of the community—such as to keep up prices,and shut out competitors. [3]

continued on page 2

The VoluntaryistEditor: Carl Watner

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Letter to the Editor"Grant No Man the Authority to Make You His

Slave" by Peter Ragnar (Whole Number 127) was veryinteresting: "When asked how one could be a free manand yet a slave, the ancient Athenian slave, Diogenes,answered, 'Simply, by the number of times you saymaster.'"

To put it in modern terms, you say "master" everytime you1) go to the store and pay the sales tax after you buyfood, fuel, or supplies;2) carry a Driver's License;3) use or refer to your Social Security number (likewhen you open a bank account or receive a paycheckfrom your employer with Social Security deductions);4) drive a car with a license plate issue by your mas-ter;5) flush the toilet and accept the master's processingof your wastes;6) use electricity that is provided by a master's-ownedgenerating plant;7) take medicine that has been approved by the mas-ter (FDA);8) send your children to a state-run kindergarten/school/university;9) send a letter via the United States Postal Service;10) use the "licensed" services of a physician, real-estate agent, broadcaster, telephone, insurance agent,day-care, or taxi;11) when you tender or accept Federal Reserve notesissued by the master.

This is the short list, of course, I hope our author,Peter Ragnar, would tell us how Diogenes would re-ply to his masters if he were in our situation.

—Anonymous |v]

Lysander Spooner Readercontinued from page 1

A person who wishes to be a lawyer has as muchright to earn his living by this means as by any other.His competence should concern only "the lawyer him-self and his clients"; the government cannot legis-late competence, nor should it try.

A free-market legal system, Spooner contends,would break up the cliquish legal fraternity and pro-vide better protection against malpractice. Here as

elsewhere Spooner was ahead of his time:If the profession were thrown open to all, thiscombination of lawyers would doubtless be bro-ken up—they, like other men, would hold them-selves severally responsible for their own char-acters alone—they would have no inducementto wink at or attempt to hide the malpracticesof others—individuals, who should supposethemselves injured by the practice of an attor-ney, instead of laying his complaints before theBar, would lay them before the grand jury, orsome other tribunal—and ... it is probable thecommunity would sometimes fare the better forit. [4]These remarks, written when Spooner was

twenty-seven, display a bold free-market radicalism.But Spooner's libertarianism was of one piece; it waseconomic and political. In the same article quotedabove, Spooner protests the requirement that law-yers must swear allegiance to the Commonwealthand the Constitution. His remarks are as charmingas they are incisive.

The right of rebelling against what I may thinka bad government, is as much my right as it isof the other citizens of the Commonwealth, andthere is no reason why lawyers should be singledout and deprived of this right. [I]t is nothingbut tyranny to require of me an oath to supportthe constitution, as a condition of my being al-lowed the ordinary privilege for getting my liv-ing in the way I choose. [5]Massachusetts law required a lawyer to inform

the court if he knew of "an intention to commit afalsehood." Again, Spooner cuts to the heart of thematter:

I do not choose to be made an informer in thismanner, against men with whose matters I havenothing to do. That is not what a lawyer goesinto Court for—he goes there to defend therights and interests of his clients, and for noth-ing else—and he has a right so to do... .[6]Scarcely any statute relating to the legal profes-

sion escaped Spooner's censorious gaze. For example,lawyers were required to contribute fifty dollars tothe Law Library Association. Spooner was outraged.If he needed to use the law library, he was willing topay for it—but what if a lawyer lived too far away tomake use of it, or what if a lawyer owned his ownbooks? Unless Spooner joined the Association or usedits books, that organization had no more claim to hisfifty dollars than "The Missionary or Bible Society."

In 1836 Spooner left Worcester for the Ohio coun-try to seek his fortune in land speculation, just intime to lose everything during the Panic of 1837.Spooner blamed the economic collapse on governmen-tal regulation of banking and currency. In A NewSystem of Paper Currency and other tracts, Spoonertried to show, in considerable detail, how a totallyunregulated currency and banking system would

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work in a free market. [7]In 1844, Spooner turned his attention to the

government's monopoly on mail delivery. He estab-lished the American Letter Mail Company, a privatepostal service tha t drastically undercut thegovernment's rate. Spooner defended his illegal ac-tion in a spirited pamphlet, The Unconstitutional ityof the Laws of Congress Prohibiting Private Mails.

The Constitution (Art. 1, Sec. 8) declares that "TheCongress shall have power to establish post-officesand post roads;" however, according to Spooner, thisdoes not justify a government monopoly on mail de-livery. Indeed, government agencies are typically con-cerned more with feathering their own nests thanwith providing efficient services. Quoting Spooner:

Universal experience attests that governmentestablishments cannot keep pace with privateenterprise in matters of business (and the trans-mission of letters is a mere matter of business).Private enterprise has always the most activephysical powers, and the most ingenious men-tal ones. It is constantly increasing its speed,and simplifying and cheapening its operations.But government functionaries, secure in theenjoyment of warm nests, large salaries, officialhonors and power, and presidential smiles—allof which they are sure of so long as they are thepartisans of the President—feel few quickeningimpulses to labor, and are altogether too inde-pendent and dignified personages to move atthe speed that commercial interests require.They take office to enjoy its honors and emolu-ments, not to get their living by the sweat oftheir brows. They are too well satisfied withtheir own conditions, to trouble their heads withplans for improving the accustomed modes ofdoing the business of their departments—toowise in their own estimation, or too jealous oftheir assumed superiority, to adopt the sugges-tions of others—too cowardly to innovate—andtoo selfish to part with any of their power, orreform the abuses on which they thrive. Theconsequence is, as we now see, that when a cum-brous, clumsy, expensive and dilatory govern-ment system is once established, it is nearlyimpossible to modify or materially improve it.Opening the business to rivalry and free com-petition, is the only way to get rid of the nui-sance. [8]

III.Spooner noted that his entire family had been

"ardent abolitionists for years," and in 1845 he en-tered the fray with The Unconstitutionality of Sla-very. This piece was warmly received by political abo-litionists who, unlike William Lloyd Garrison and hisallies, urged anti-slavery activists to vote and runfor political office.

The esteem shown for Spooner by political aboli-tionists is reflected in this resolution passed by the

Liberty party in 1849:Whereas, Lysander Spooner, of Massachusetts,that man of honest heart and acute and pro-found intellect, has published a perfectly con-clusive legal argument against the constitution-ality of slavery;Resolved, therefore, that we warmly recommendto the friends of of freedom, in this and otherStates, to supply, within the coming six months,each lawyer in their respective counties with acopy of said argument. [9]Spooner's role in abolitionism can be understood

only by placing him in the broader context of the con-troversies that divided that volatile and fascinatingmovement. [10]

The dominant figure in abolitionism was WilliamLloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator. Garrisonfirmly believed that the Constitution sanctions sla-very, even though the words "slave" and "slavery"never appear in the document. Garrison's positionwas strengthened in 1840, when James Madison'srecord of the Constitutional Convention was pub-lished for the first time. [11]

Much that transpired during the ConstitutionalConvention remained hidden from Americans for fiftyyears, thereby permitting delegates to escape ac-countability through death. Madison's detailednotes—suitably altered so as to understate his youth-ful nationalism—left no doubt about the place of sla-very in the Constitution. It was sanctioned and pro-tected as a means to bring the deep South into theunion. This was especially apparent in three clauses:the provision that "all other persons" were to becounted as three-fifths when computing representa-tion in the House (Art. I, sec. 2); the provision thatCongress could not outlaw the slave trade until 1808(Art. I, sec. 9); and the provision that required statesto return runaway slaves to their masters (Art. IV,sec. 2).

Garrison's position was clearly and colorfullystated in 1854, when abolitionists convened inFramingham, Massachusetts to protest the returnof an escaped slave, Anthony Burns. During hisspeech, Garrison held up a copy of the Constitutionand condemned it as "a covenant with death and anagreement from hell." Then Garrison burned a copyof the Constitution while declaring, "So perish allcompromises with tyranny!" Most of the audienceresponded with amens.[l2]

Garrison's view of the Constitution led him tooppose any political activity by abolitionists. His col-league Wendell Phillips defended this position in CanAbolitionists Vote or Take Office Under the UnitedStates Constitution? (1845).

Phillips notes that all officials, state and federal,are required to swear an oath "to support the Con-stitution of the United States"—and he maintainsthat no abolitionist can do so in good conscience, be-cause the Constitution is a pro-slavery document. Nor

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should abolitionists vote, because voting delegatesauthority to an agent, and what "one does by his agenthe does himself." Phillips continues:

Of course no honest man will authorize and re-quest another to do an act which he thinks itwrong to do himself. Every voter, therefore, isbound to see, before voting, whether he couldhimself honestly swear to support the constitu-tion. [13]In The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, Spooner

sought to refute the Garrisonian critique of theConstitution and thereby open the door for politi-cal activity by abolitionists. Spooner was neitherthe first nor the last to try this, but his attemptwas the most thorough and legally grounded. Toestablish the unconsti tut ionali ty of slavery,Spooner believed, was a necessary step in abol-ishing slavery. Even if the entire North becameabolitionist, "they would still be unable to touchthe chain of a single slave, so long as they shouldconcede that slavery was constitutional." South-ern lawyers were noted for their strict and literalinterpretation of the Constitution, so Spoonerhoped to change their minds by meeting them ontheir own ground. He based his case on the rulesof legal interpretation expounded by Sir WilliamBlackstone and other authorities of Common Law.

According to Spooner, law, in its most basic sense,refers to natural law—"that natural, universal, im-partial and inflexible principle, which, under all cir-cumstances, necessarily fixes, determines, defines andgoverns the civil rights of men." All men are endowedwith equal rights to life, liberty, and property. This is"the paramount law"; indeed, strictly speaking, therecan be "no law but natural law," because no humanenactments can overturn the provisions of naturaljustice. Legitimate governments must rest on con-sent; a social contract, and even that contract "can-not lawfully authorize government to destroy or takefrom men their natural rights: for natural rights areinalienable, and can no more be surrendered to gov-ernment—which is but an association of individu-als—than to a single individual." The only "legitimateand true object of government," is to protect naturalrights. Even a majority, however large, cannot agreeto a contract (a constitution) that violates "the natu-ral rights of any person or persons whatsoever." Sucha contract "is unlawful and void" and has "no moralsanction." [14]

This argument from natural law renders sla-very immoral and unjust, whatever the Constitu-tion might say. But Spooner does not base his con-stitutional argument on this premise. In interpret-ing the Constitution, he insists only that "the or-dinary legal rules of interpretation." be observed.Natural right, in Spooner's argument, functionsas a presumption, a beacon to guide legal inter-pretations. The most important rule is that all lan-guage in the Constitution "must be construed

'strictly' in favor of natural right," unless there isclear and convincing evidence to the contrary. Be-fore we can interpret constitutional provision ascontrary to natural right (i.e., as upholding sla-very), the terms of that provision must be "express,explicit, distinct, unequivocal, and one to whichno other meaning can be given... . [15]

While examining the slavery clauses of the Con-stitution, Spooner falls back on his basic rule of in-terpretation. Any apparent violation of natural rightmust be stated explicitly and not permit another,more libertarian interpretation. For example, thefugitive slave clause refers to persons "held to ser-vice or labor." According to Spooner, this provision, ifinterpreted literally, refers to indentured servants,not to slaves. And so it goes with other slavery provi-sions of the Constitution.

Spooner was unmoved by the supposed intentionsof the Constitution's framers. The only relevant le-gal point is what the Constitution in fact authorizesin express language, not what its framers intendedit to authorize. The Constitution never mentionsslaves or slavery, so by strict rules of interpretation—indeed, by the same rules that most Southerners fol-lowed—the constitution cannot be viewed as pro-sla-very.

IV.The Unconstitutionality of Slavery was greatly

admired by political abolitionists who—in oppositionto William Lloyd Garrison and his followers—be-lieved in the morality of voting and electoral poli-tics. It is ironic, therefore, that Spooner refused tovote or join any political party, including the aboli-tionist Liberty party.

In a letter to his friend George Bradburn,Spooner indicated that his "theory of voting" didnot allow him to support any political party, evenone that was antislavery. Bradburn was annoyed.How could it be "that such notions are held by him,who wrote the 'Unconstitutionality of Slavery"'?Spooner replied:

I do not rely upon "political machinery" (al-though it may, or may not, do good, according asits objects are, or are not, legal and constitu-tional) ... because the principle of it is wrong;for it admits ... that under a constitution, thelaw depends on the will of majorities, for thetime being, as indicated by the acts of the legis-lature. [16]Spooner could not sanction the Constitution and

the government it established. Although the Consti-tution is "a thousand times better ... than it is gen-erally understood to be," it is so seriously flawed that"honest men who know its true character" should notsanction it. [17] Wendell Phillips was indeed correctwhen he charged that "Mr. Spooner's idea is practi-cal no-governmentalism.[l8]

Thus, Spooner was neither a Garrisonian nor apolitical abolitionist. As Lewis Perry has observed,

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Spooner "was a maverick abolitionist who belongedto none of the familiar factions in the movement ."[19]

In A Defence for Fugitive Slaves (1850), Spoonerpresents an argument that he would later expandinto one of his most famous works, An Essay on theTrial By Jury (reprinted in this volume). Americanswho assisted runaway slaves were subject to pros-ecution under the Fugitive Slave Laws. Spooner re-gards these laws as unconstitutional and unjust;therefore, anyone prosecuted under them should beexonerated by the jury.

If an indictment be found, the jury who try thatindictment, are judges of the law, as well as thefact. If they think the law unconstitutional, oreven have any reasonable doubt of its constitu-tionality, they are bound to hold the defendantsjustified in resisting its execution. [20]According to Spooner, a judge represents the gov-

ernment, where as a jury represents the people. Andthe people, speaking through a jury, have a right toassess laws as well as facts. Should a jury find a lawunjust or unconstitutional, it should effectively nul-lify that law by refusing to convict the defendant.

"What Individual Rights Mean"In a culture where individual rights are fully

respected, "if other people want to deal with some-one, they have to ask, convince, and persuade thatindividual to lend support, to cooperate. This isone of the most civilizing forces in human society:not to permit the use of coercive force by one indi-vidual toward another, by one group of people to-ward others, but to insist that agreements, coop-eration, and mutual effort must be reachedthrough consent. People, instead of conquering,expropriating from, or conscripting others to gaintheir cooperation, must confine themselves to theuse of reasoned and peaceful persuasion."

—Tibor Machan, INDIVIDUAL RIGHTSRECONSIDERED (2001), pp. xxii-xxiii

In An Essay on the Trial By Jury, Spooner pre-sents a good deal of historical material to supporthis case for jury nullification. Did early Americanlaw conform to Spooner's view, as he claims? The dis-tinguished legal historian Lawrence M. Friedmanwrites:

In American legal theory, jury power was enor-mous, and subject to few controls. There was amaxim of law that the jury was judge both oflaw and of fact in criminal cases. This idea wasparticularly strong in the first Revolutionarygeneration, when memories of royal justice werefresh. In some states the rule lasted a long time,and in Maryland, the slogan was actually im-bedded in the constitution. But the rule cameunder savage attack from some judges and otherauthorities... . It ... threatens the power ofjudges. [21]

V.Jury nullification was not Spooner's only strat-

egy to weaken slavery. He also called for armed abo-litionists to infiltrate the South, liberate slaves, andfoment insurrections. After attaining their freedom,slaves were to receive restitution from the propertyof their former owners. These and other particularsare spelled out in A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery,a broadside published by Spooner in the summer of1858. This broadside apparently influenced JohnBrown, who tried to implement Spooner's plan in hisabortive raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia. [22]

After Brown had been captured and sentenced tohang, Spooner hatched a plan to kidnap GovernorHenry Wise of Virginia and hold him as hostage inexchange for Brown. This plan went nowhere, how-ever, owing to lack of funds. [23]

Spooner was adamant in his belief that the rightforcibly to resist unjust laws is inalienable. The con-stant fear of an uprising by the people is the onlything that keeps rulers from becoming tyrannical.As Spooner puts it:

The right and the physical power of the people toresist unjustice, are really the only securities thatany people ever can have for their liberties. Prac-tically no government knows any limit to its powerbut the endurance of the people. And our govern-ment is no exception to the rule. But that thepeople are stronger than the government, our rep-resentatives would do any thing but lay down theirpower at the end of two years. And so of the presi-dent and senate. Nothing but the strength of thepeople, and a knowledge that they will forciblyresist any very gross transgression of the author-ity granted to their representatives, deters theserepresentatives from enriching themselves, andperpetuating their power, by plundering and en-slaving the people. [24]Spooner's dissent from orthodox abolitionism is

nowhere more apparent than in No Treason, perhapshis greatest work (and reprinted in this volume.)Nearly every abolitionist supported the North dur-ing the Civil War. This was true even of Garrison, aprofessed pacifist who had previously called for freestates to secede from the Union. Garrison, whoviewed the Civil War as a struggle between "free menand a desperate slave oligarchy," wrote:

All my sympathies and wishes are with the[Northern] government, because it is entirelyin the right, and acting strictly in self-defenseand for self-preservation. This I can say, with-out any compromise of my peace-principles. [25]Spooner attacks these common beliefs in No Trea-

son, where he undertakes a remarkable and devas-tating analysis of the Constitution and its moralauthority (it had none, according to Spooner). Heclearly distinguishes the evil of slavery from the rightof secession—a right that was embodied in the Ameri-can Revolution.

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[T]he whole Revolution turned upon, asserted,and, in theory, established, the right of each andevery man, at his discretion, to release himselffrom the support of the government under whichhe lived. And this principle was asserted, not asa right peculiar to themselves, or to that time,or as applicable only to the government thenexisting; but as a natural right of all men, at alltimes, and under all circumstances. [26]

"What Vountary Means"We often use the word voluntary to identify

charitable actions taken in society that do not re-sult in profit. But consider that profit in a marketeconomy also results from voluntary actions. Theyinvolve willing buyers and willing sellers, willingworkers and willing capital owners. All "capital-ist" acts result from volitional choice, a decisionmade by individuals to make exchange [s] basedon the forecast that doing so will improve theirlots in life. A better term for charitable activities,as distinct from commercial ones, would be non-pecuniary activities.

So by voluntary human energies, I really in-tend to sum up the whole of economic affairs inso-far as they do not involve forcing people to dothings they would not otherwise do. This includesactivities ranging from the small scale transac-tions of the peasant farmer to the complex finan-cial transactions of Wall Street. All involve indi-viduals choosing to trade to improve [themselves]

We can contrast this with government means,which always involve an element of force. Whetherit is taxation, regulation, or restrictions on con-sumption, all government programs are designedto thwart what would otherwise be voluntary de-cisions.

—Rev. Robert A. Sirico, "Be Wary of Power," inThe Acton Ins t i tu te ' s RELIGION ANDLIBERTY (Winter 2006), p. 15.

Spooner stood nearly alone among radical aboli-tionists in his defense of the right of the South tosecede from the Union. Then, as if anticipating revi-sionist historians, he denies that the war had beenfought over slavery. Rather, the war erupted "for apurely pecuniary consideration, to wit, a [Northern]control of the markets in the South; in other words,the privilege of holding the slave-holders themselvesin industrial and commercial subjection to the manu-facturers and merchants of the North (who after-wards furnished the money for the war.)"[27]Spooner's extensive treatment of this theme is surelyone of the most fascinating pieces of writing fromthe Civil War era.

VI.Spooner's concern with civil liberties is manifested

in Vices Are Not Crimes (reprinted in this volume),

which originally appeared anonymously as a chap-ter in a book by Dio Lewis, Prohibition: A Failure(1875). The physician Lewis attributed the chapterto "a lawyer friend," and not until Benjamin Tucker'smemoir of Spooner (Liberty, May 28, 1887) did thetrue author become known.

This is probably the only major piece not to beincluded in The Collected Works ofLysander Spooner.Vices Are Not Crimes owes its modern revival to CarlWatner, who unearthed it, and to Janice Allen, whopublished it (TANSTAAFL, 1977) for the first timein more than a century. Were it not for this joint la-bor of love, one of Spooner's finest essays might haveremained buried indefinitely between the covers ofan obscure book.

Vices Are Not Crimes is as fresh as the day it waswritten, for it speaks directly to the current persecu-tion of drug consumers, sexual nonconformists, andothers who pursue their happiness in illegal ways.Indeed, most modern tracts on personal liberty palein comparison to Spooner's uncompromising andunapologetic defense.

According to Spooner, every mentally competentperson over ten years of age—regardless of race, sex,religion, or personal proclivities—is equally pos-sessed with natural rights, including the right topursue happiness. A government should protect thisright (assuming we take the Declaration of Indepen-dence seriously), but this is impossible if a govern-ment also tries to punish vice. A government can doone or the other but not both, any more than it canprotect both liberty and slavery.

No one is morally perfect, so if a government wereto punish all vices impartially, "everybody would be inprison for his or her vices," leaving "no one left outsideto lock the doors upon those within." Only one possibil-ity remains: a government might punish only selectvices. But, Spooner contends, it is "utterly absurd, il-logical, and tyrannical" for a group to punish the vicesof others while demanding liberty for their own.

The violation of rights is the bright line by whichSpooner separates vices from crimes. Crimes violate rights;vices do not. Vices may be self-destructive or offensive,but—like all peaceful, voluntary activities—they shouldremain outside the province of law and government. Suchvices include "gluttony, drunkenness, prostitution, gam-bling, prize-fighting, tobacco-chewing, smoking, and snuff-ing, opium-eating, corset-wearing, idleness, waste of prop-erty, avarice, hypocrisy, &c, &c." If practitioners of theseand other vices cannot be reformed voluntarily, if they go"on to what other men call destruction," then they "mustbe permitted to do so."

The essence of Spooner's argument runs deep inthe individualist tradition. For example, two centu-ries before Spooner, John Locke had argued that aruler should not try to stamp out sin. Why? Becausesins as such "are rot prejudicial to other men's rights,nor do they break the public peace of societies."

Spooner begins with rights but does not end there.

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Vices Are Not Crimes contains a wealth of insightfulobservations about the highly contextual nature ofvirtue and vice. Spooner shows great respect for theunique character and circumstances of each indi-vidual, and he studiously avoids that pretentiousmoralizing that so often mars works of this kind.People must make decisions in their quest for happi-ness, and some may choose better than others. Butvirtue and happiness cannot flourish unless a per-son is free "to inquire, investigate, reason, try experi-ments, judge, and ascertain for himself... ." Coercedvirtue is a contradiction in terms.

VII.The Civil War extinguished 620,000 lives and

transformed the political culture of America. GeorgeTicknor, writing in 1869, commented on the "greatgulf between what happened before the war in ourcentury and what has happened since or what islikely to happen hereafter. It does not seem to me asif I were living in the country in which I wasborn." [28]

The language of rights, consent, and social con-tract-the vocabulary of Lysander Spooner—was nolonger popular among Northern intellectuals, for thishad been the language of treason and secession. Theword "union" (which suggested a confederation ofsovereign states) gave way to "nation"; and "TheUnited States are" (the verb preferred by JamesMadison, among many others) became "The UnitedStates is... [29]

After the war, a speaker at William and MaryCollege declared: "We at the North, all learned thatthere was in our ... Government a power of whichwe never dreamed." The Unitarian minister, HenryBellows went further: "The State is indeed divine, asbeing the great incarnation of a nation's rights, privi-leges, honor and life." According to the historian JohnMotley, "no individual is anything in the midst of thisgreat revolution"; and, in the words of Walt Whitman,the war taught America that "a nation cannot betrifled with. [30]

Lysander Spooner no longer spoke the languageof his countrymen, and he watched the power of gov-ernment accelerate at an astonishing rate. [31]Spooner was swimming against the current of opin-ion, but he never gave up. His friend and colleagueBenjamin Tucker gave him a fitting tribute:

He died at one o'clock in the afternoon of Satur-day, May 14 [1887], in his little room at 109Myrtle Street, surrounded by trunks and chestsbursting with the books, manuscripts, and pam-phlets which he had gathered about him in hisactive pamphleteer's warfare over half a cen-tury long... . Some time or other the story ofthis glorious life of eighty years will be told indetail as it deserves. [32]

[From THE LYSANDER SPOONER READER, SanFrancisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1992, pp. vii-xix, Footnotesnot included.] 53

The power [of coining money] itself is a frivo-lous one, of little or no utility; for the weighingand assaying of metals is a thing so easily done,and can be done by so many different persons, thatthere is certainly no necessity for it being done atall by a government. And it would undoubtedlyhave been far better if all coins - whether coinedby governments or individuals - had all been madeinto pieces bearing simply the names of pounds,ounces, pennyweights, etc., and containing just theamounts of pure metal described by those weights.The coins would have then been regarded as onlyso much metal; and as having only the same valueas the same amount of metal in any other form.Men would then have known exactly how much ofcertain metals they were buying, selling, and prom-ising to pay. And all the jugglery, cheating, androbbery that governments have practised, and li-censed individuals to practise - by coining piecesbearing the same names, but having differentamounts of metal - would have been avoided.

And all excuses for establishing monopolies ofmoney, by prohibiting all other money than thecoins, would also have been avoided.

—Lysander Spooner, A LETTER TO GROVERCLEVELAND, Sec. XXII (1886), p. 72.

Society vs. The Statecontinued from page 8

often destroys the independence of the latter.The issue of taxation involves nothing less than the

human and natural right to own, use, and enjoy privateproperty, a "civil right" of the most basic kind. Propertyand wealth determine personal power to control our lives,to make decisions, to raise a family, to live free.

As Albert Jay Nock noted, every additional taximposed diminishes our freedom.

In an economic history of the Middle Ages, PaulCraig Roberts, the economist and columnist, showedthat medieval serfs bound to the land and their mas-ters rarely paid more than one-third the value of theirlabor in taxes. For good reason: with very low pro-ductivity, serfs could not survive if forced to pay moretaxes. With nothing to lose, they would revolt andkill the tax collectors.

Yet half a millennium later, with capitalism's enor-mously increased productivity, we have even lessright to our earnings than did those enslaved serfs.Says Roberts, "You are not free when you do not ownthe product of your own labor."[From the "Preface," Robert E. Bauman, ed., FOR-BIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, Waterford: The SoverignSociety, 5th Edition, 2004. Reprint permission datedMarch 6, 2006 by Shannon Crouch, The SovereignSociety, 5 Catherine Street, Waterford, Ireland. Phone888-358-8125. Email: info@sovereignsociety.com.Web: www.sovereignsociety.com.] 53

1st Quarter 2008 Page 7

Society vs. The State"... just as the State has no money of its own,

so it has no power of its own. All the power ithas society gives it, plus what it confiscates fromtime to time on one pretext or another; there isno other source from which State power can bedrawn. Therefore every assumption of Statepower, whether by gift or seizure, leaves societywith so much less power; there is never, nor canbe, any strengthening of State power without acorresponding and equivalent depletion of socialpower/'

—Albert Jay Nock, OUR ENEMY, THESTATE (1935), Caldwell: The Caxton Printers,1950, Chap. 1, pp. 3-4.

"Knowledge itself is power."—Francis Bacon, MEDITATIONES SACRAE

(1597)

In the age-old struggle for individual libertyagainst the power of the state, there can be no ques-tion which side has triumphed throughout most ofthe twentieth century.

The one interest the state willingly sacrifices tothe "common good" is personal liberty, the freedomto produce and create, to buy and sell, to speak andpublish, to travel, to live freely. By diminishing lib-erty, government systematically subverts people's

responsibility for their own lives. It robs those whoproduce in order to placate those who only consume.The result is economic stagnation, retrogression, andpolitical corruption.

Since the seventeenth century, in England,France, and America, and more recently in Russiaand Eastern Europe, revolutions against this tyrannyof the state were fought on behalf of an alternativewe can call "natural liberty." At first successful, overtime these revolutions cooled down to complacencyand hard-won freedom came to mean guaranteedentitlement to government largess.

True natural liberty means that each one of us isthe sole legitimate owner of our own life and destiny,free to act as we wish so long as we use no violence,fraud, or other aggression against others. That samefreedom dictates a free-market economy enjoyingpeaceful production and trade. It opposes governmentcontrol by self-serving politicians.

No activity of statist governments has diminishedpersonal liberty more than the unchecked power to tax.In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ger-many the effective rate of personal taxes far exceeds50 percent of earnings. In some nations, such as Franceand Sweden, it is higher still. Business is taxed at evengreater levels. And everyone pays the ultimate price.

When government takes wealth from some andgives it to others, this forced redistribution dimin-ishes the rights and well-being of the former, and

continued on page 7

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