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The Lysander Spooner Reader
Lawyer, abolitionist, radical; Spooner was one of the most fascinating figures in American history and a champion of individualism. This selection includes "Vices Are Not Crimes," "Natural Law," "Trial by Jury," "No Treason, the Constitution of No Authority," "Letter to Thomas Bayard," and Benjamin Tucker's eulogy.
343 pages, Paperback
First published June 18, 2012
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About the author
Lysander Spooner
134 books167 followersLysander Spooner was an American individualist anarchist, entrepreneur, political philosopher, abolitionist, supporter of the labor movement, and legal theorist of the nineteenth century. He is also known for competing with the U.S. Post Office with his American Letter Mail Company, which was forced out of business by the United States government. He has been identified by some contemporary writers as an anarcho-capitalist,while at least one writer is convinced that his advocacy of self-employment over working for an employer for wages qualifies him as an anti-capitalist or a socialist, notwithstanding his support for private ownership of the means of production and a free-market economy.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 13, 2016
Lysander Spooner is one of the preeminent figures in American anarchism. He is often cited by right-wing American libertarians as a major influence - although his membership in the First International might suggest that his views on the "free market", are more ambiguous than they appear on the surface. This collection of his work contains the essays, "Natural Law", "Vices are not Crimes", "No Treason", "Letter to Thomas F. Bayard", and "Trial by Jury".
As an individualist anarchist, Spooner's basic conviction is that every individual person is completely autonomous and at liberty to dispose of themselves and their property as they see fit. All associations between people, be they a government or any other type of organization aimed at a specific goal, must be voluntary, with each party consciously assenting to take part, and retaining the right to withdraw their consent at any time. Any attempt to extract property or curtail the autonomy of an individual, which he did not personally consent to, amounts to a violent usurpation of power on the part of the collective and violates Spooner's conception of "Natural Law", which is as discernible as a law of physics, using the "science of justice".
It is on this basis that Spooner sets out, in these essays, to argue that most of the laws and institutions that we take for granted are illegitimate. In "No Treason", he argues that the Constitution cannot be the legitimate governing law of the United States, because those who wrote and adopted it are no longer living, and one generation does not have any right to bind another to its laws and customs; in addition to the fact that the delegates at the constitutional convention did not represent the majority of the American people in 1787. He claims that the constitution, as interpreted by his pro-Union contemporaries, is just as unlawful as the most repressive governments on Earth, because it does not give people the option to withdraw their content, and is engineered to perpetuate the power and privilege of those for whom it was created. Spooner opposed the causes of both the Union and the Confederacy during the American Civil War: The Union because it was trying to impose its laws arbitrarily on people who didn't want to be bound by them; and the Confederacy because it sought to allow state governments the same arbitrary power, namely to perpetuate the institution of slavery, which Spooner vehemently opposed.
I was reminded of a speech Ron Paul (himself an admirer of Spooner) gave, while standing in front of a giant Confederate battle flag, in which he declared that southern secession was right and legitimate for many of the same reasons given by Spooner. He seems to have ignored Spooner's insistence that state governments are also illegitimate if they advocate, or even tolerate, coercion against their populations, which the Confederate states undoubtedly did. What neither Spooner nor Paul seem to have considered, is the notion that the federal government, acting as the instrument of the public interest, has at times liberated people from private tyranny.
In "Vices are not Crimes", Spooner applies his voluntarism to personal behavior as well. He defines a vice as something that people do which harms themselves, in the mistaken belief that it will lead to their greater happiness and fulfillment, while a crime is an act which harms other people. Since vices do not harm other people (or so Spooner alleges), there should be no laws against them. As in the rest of his thinking, this viewpoint is challengeable by the possibility that we are NOT entirely in control of our own bodies, actions, and possessions, and that the things we do, even if we think we are only affecting ourselves, do have an impact on the wellbeing of those around us, and thus could possibly warrant some form of regulation on the part of a government overseen by society at large.
I found "Trial by Jury", to be Spooner's most interesting essay, as goes back to the time of the Magna Carta (1215) to argue that juries should be able to decide not only whether an accused person has violated the law, but whether the law itself, as it stands, is legitimate. Juries should have the same veto power over the implementation of laws that is held by the house, senate, president, and Supreme Court. If a jury is only able to decide a defender's guilt or innocence based on laws which they had no part enacting, the jury is in effect operating only as an instrument of the government's will. I found this to be the most convincing and original of Spooner's essays.
Spooner's greatest weakness is individualism's greatest weakness. No man is an island. If we claim that our wealth and property are completely our own, that our personal choices affect only ourselves, and that we have essentially no obligation to other people except to leave them alone, we are deceiving ourselves. Our actions affect other people in ways that we are not even aware of. And if we can opt out of our "contractual arrangements" with government at any time, than the "good" laws of government which we take for granted, like those that guarantee certain rights and protect our property and our safety, are rendered impotent.
As an individualist anarchist, Spooner's basic conviction is that every individual person is completely autonomous and at liberty to dispose of themselves and their property as they see fit. All associations between people, be they a government or any other type of organization aimed at a specific goal, must be voluntary, with each party consciously assenting to take part, and retaining the right to withdraw their consent at any time. Any attempt to extract property or curtail the autonomy of an individual, which he did not personally consent to, amounts to a violent usurpation of power on the part of the collective and violates Spooner's conception of "Natural Law", which is as discernible as a law of physics, using the "science of justice".
It is on this basis that Spooner sets out, in these essays, to argue that most of the laws and institutions that we take for granted are illegitimate. In "No Treason", he argues that the Constitution cannot be the legitimate governing law of the United States, because those who wrote and adopted it are no longer living, and one generation does not have any right to bind another to its laws and customs; in addition to the fact that the delegates at the constitutional convention did not represent the majority of the American people in 1787. He claims that the constitution, as interpreted by his pro-Union contemporaries, is just as unlawful as the most repressive governments on Earth, because it does not give people the option to withdraw their content, and is engineered to perpetuate the power and privilege of those for whom it was created. Spooner opposed the causes of both the Union and the Confederacy during the American Civil War: The Union because it was trying to impose its laws arbitrarily on people who didn't want to be bound by them; and the Confederacy because it sought to allow state governments the same arbitrary power, namely to perpetuate the institution of slavery, which Spooner vehemently opposed.
I was reminded of a speech Ron Paul (himself an admirer of Spooner) gave, while standing in front of a giant Confederate battle flag, in which he declared that southern secession was right and legitimate for many of the same reasons given by Spooner. He seems to have ignored Spooner's insistence that state governments are also illegitimate if they advocate, or even tolerate, coercion against their populations, which the Confederate states undoubtedly did. What neither Spooner nor Paul seem to have considered, is the notion that the federal government, acting as the instrument of the public interest, has at times liberated people from private tyranny.
In "Vices are not Crimes", Spooner applies his voluntarism to personal behavior as well. He defines a vice as something that people do which harms themselves, in the mistaken belief that it will lead to their greater happiness and fulfillment, while a crime is an act which harms other people. Since vices do not harm other people (or so Spooner alleges), there should be no laws against them. As in the rest of his thinking, this viewpoint is challengeable by the possibility that we are NOT entirely in control of our own bodies, actions, and possessions, and that the things we do, even if we think we are only affecting ourselves, do have an impact on the wellbeing of those around us, and thus could possibly warrant some form of regulation on the part of a government overseen by society at large.
I found "Trial by Jury", to be Spooner's most interesting essay, as goes back to the time of the Magna Carta (1215) to argue that juries should be able to decide not only whether an accused person has violated the law, but whether the law itself, as it stands, is legitimate. Juries should have the same veto power over the implementation of laws that is held by the house, senate, president, and Supreme Court. If a jury is only able to decide a defender's guilt or innocence based on laws which they had no part enacting, the jury is in effect operating only as an instrument of the government's will. I found this to be the most convincing and original of Spooner's essays.
Spooner's greatest weakness is individualism's greatest weakness. No man is an island. If we claim that our wealth and property are completely our own, that our personal choices affect only ourselves, and that we have essentially no obligation to other people except to leave them alone, we are deceiving ourselves. Our actions affect other people in ways that we are not even aware of. And if we can opt out of our "contractual arrangements" with government at any time, than the "good" laws of government which we take for granted, like those that guarantee certain rights and protect our property and our safety, are rendered impotent.
January 8, 2024
Spooner's arguments completely unpick the rationale for the existence of modern governments. As disturbing as it is to learn your natural rights have been usurped, his logic is so sound that you are left in no doubt this is what has transpired.
February 15, 2019
A good tonic for those overly reverent of the US Constitution and other fallacies of the state.
August 14, 2014
If you are any form is statist (lover of government), if you haven't heard of this man or never read his thoughts, you are sorely at a loss. Lysander Spooner is held by many has the farther of modern anarchism.
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February 28, 2009I wish Lysander Spooner could write about today's events. I re-read this book regularly.
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