Read Ebook: A Letter to Grover Cleveland On His False Inaugural Address The Usurpations and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges and the Consequent Poverty Ignorance and Servitude Of The People by Spooner Lysander

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 420 lines and 48429 words, and 9 pages

But perhaps the most brilliant idea in your whole address, is this:

The essential parts of this declaration are these:

Your declaration, therefore, amounts, practically, to this, and this only:

The law of justice is the precise measure, and the only precise measure, of the rightful "liberty" of each and every human being. Any law--made by lawmakers--that should give to any man more liberty than is given him by the law of justice, would be a license to commit an injustice upon one or more other persons. On the other hand, any law--made by lawmakers--that should take from any human being any "liberty" that is given him by the law of justice, would be taking from him a part of his own rightful "liberty."

Inasmuch, then, as every possible law, that can be made by lawmakers, must either give to some one or more persons more "liberty" than the law of nature--or the law of justice--gives them, and more "liberty" than is consistent with the natural and equal "liberty" of all other persons; or else must take from some one or more persons some portion of that "liberty" which the law of nature--or the law of justice--gives to every human being, it is inevitable that every law, that can be made by lawmakers, must be a violation of the natural and rightful "liberty" of some one or more persons.

"Our liberty" is in danger only from the lawmakers, because it is only through the agency of lawmakers, that anybody pretends to be able to take away "our liberty." It is only the lawmakers that claim to be above all responsibility for taking away "our liberty." Lawmakers are the only ones who are impudent enough to assert for themselves the right to take away "our liberty." They are the only ones who are impudent enough to tell us that we have voluntarily surrendered "our liberty" into their hands. They are the only ones who have the insolent condescension to tell us that, in consideration of our having surrendered into their hands "our liberty," and all our natural, inherent, inalienable rights as human beings, they are disposed to give us, in return, "good government," "the best form of government ever vouchsafed to man"; to "protect" us, to provide for our "welfare," to promote our "interests," etc., etc.

And yet you are just blockhead enough to tell us that if "Every citizen"--fifty millions and more of them--will but keep "a vigilant watch and close scrutiny" upon these lawmakers, "our liberty" may be preserved!

Don't you think, sir, that you are really the wisest man that ever told "a great and free people" how they could preserve "their liberty"?

To be entirely candid, don't you think, sir, that a surer way of preserving "our liberty" would be to have no lawmakers at all?

But, in spite of all I have said, or, perhaps, can say, you will probably persist in your idea that the world needs a great deal of lawmaking; that mankind in general are not entitled to have any will, choice, judgment, or conscience of their own; that, if not very wicked, they are at least very ignorant and stupid; that they know very little of what is for their own good, or how to promote their own "interests," "welfare," or "prosperity"; that it is therefore necessary that they should be put under guardianship to lawmakers; that these lawmakers, being a very superior race of beings,--wise beyond the rest of their species,--and entirely free from all those selfish passions which tempt common mortals to do wrong,--must be intrusted with absolute and irresponsible dominion over the less favored of their kind; must prescribe to the latter, authoritatively, what they may, and may not, do; and, in general, manage the affairs of this world according to their discretion, free of all accountability to any human tribunals.

And you seem to be perfectly confident that, under this absolute and irresponsible dominion of the lawmakers, the affairs of this world will be rightly managed; that the "interests," "welfare," and "prosperity" of "a great and free people" will be properly attended to; that "the greatest good of the greatest number" will be accomplished, etc., etc.

And yet you hold that all this lawmaking, and all this subjection of the great body of the people to the arbitrary, irresponsible dominion of the lawmakers, will not interfere at all with "our liberty," if only "every citizen" will but keep "a vigilant watch and close scrutiny" of the lawmakers.

Well, perhaps this is all so; although this subjection to the arbitrary will of any man, or body of men, whatever, and under any pretence whatever, seems, on the face of it, to be much more like slavery, than it does like "liberty".

If, therefore, you really intend to continue this system of lawmaking, it seems indispensable that you should explain to us what you mean by the term "our liberty."

So far as your address gives us any light on the subject, you evidently mean, by the term "our liberty," just such, and only such, "liberty," as the lawmakers may see fit to allow us to have.

You seem to have no conception of any other "liberty" whatever.

You give us no idea of any other "liberty" that we can secure to ourselves, even though "every citizen"--fifty millions and more of them--shall all keep "a vigilant watch and close scrutiny" upon the lawmakers.

Now, inasmuch as the human race always have had all the "liberty" their lawmakers have seen fit to permit them to have; and inasmuch as, under your system of lawmaking, they always will have as much "liberty" as their lawmakers shall see fit to give them; and inasmuch as you apparently concede the right, which the lawmakers have always claimed, of killing all those who are not content with so much "liberty" as their lawmakers have seen fit to allow them,--it seems very plain that you have not added anything to our stock of knowledge on the subject of "our liberty."

Leaving us thus, as you do, in as great darkness as we ever were, on this all-important subject of "our liberty," I think you ought to submit patiently to a little questioning on the part of those of us, who feel that all this lawmaking--each and every separate particle of it--is a violation of "our liberty."

Are you prepared to answer that question?

No. You appear to have never given a thought to any such question as that.

I will therefore answer it for you.

All these things prove that the government is not one voluntarily established and sustained by the people, for the protection of their natural, inherent, individual rights, but that it is merely a government of usurpers, robbers, and tyrants, who claim to own the people as their slaves, and claim the right to dispose of them, and their property, at their pleasure or discretion.

Now, sir, since you may be disposed to deny that such is the real character of the government, I propose to prove it, by evidences so numerous and conclusive that you cannot dispute them.

The proofs of this proposition are so numerous, that only a few of the most important can here be enumerated.

If, in private life, a man enters into a perfectly voluntary agreement to work for another, at some innocent and useful labor, for a day, a week, a month, or a year, he cannot lawfully be compelled to fulfil that contract; because such compulsion would be an acknowledgment of his right to sell his own liberty. And this is what no one can do.

This right of personal liberty is inalienable. No man can sell it, or transfer it to another; or give to another any right of arbitrary dominion over him. All contracts for such a purpose are absurd and void contracts, that no man can rightfully be compelled to fulfil.

But when a deluded or ignorant young man has once been enticed into a contract to kill others, and to take his chances of being killed himself, in the service of the government, for any given number of years, the government holds that such a contract to sell his liberty, his judgment, his conscience, and his life, is a valid and binding contract; and that if he fails to fulfil it, he may rightfully be shot.

All these things prove that the government recognizes no right of the individual, to his own life, or liberty, or to the exercise of his own will, judgment, or conscience, in regard to his killing his fellow-men, or to being killed himself, if the government sees fit to use him as mere war material, in maintaining its arbitrary dominion over other human beings.

This is proved by the fact that it takes, for its own uses, any and every man's property--when it pleases, and as much of it as it pleases--without obtaining, or even asking, his consent.

If A uses his own property so as to injure the person or property of B, his own property may rightfully be taken to any extent that is necessary to make reparation for the wrong he has done.

No man can be said to have any right of property at all, in any thing--that is, any right of supreme, absolute, and irresponsible dominion over any thing--of which any other men may rightfully deprive him at their pleasure.

It asserts that wilderness land is the property of the government; and that individuals have no right to take possession of, or cultivate, it, unless by special grant of the government. And if an individual attempts to exercise this natural right, the government punishes him as a trespasser and a criminal.

The government has no more right to claim the ownership of wilderness lands, than it has to claim the ownership of the sunshine, the water, or the atmosphere. And it has no more right to punish a man for taking possession of wilderness land, and cultivating it, without the consent of the government, than it has to punish him for breathing the air, drinking the water, or enjoying the sunshine, without a special grant from the government.

The power that has been thus usurped by governments, to arbitrarily prohibit or qualify all contracts that are naturally and intrinsically just and lawful, has been the great, perhaps the greatest, of all the instrumentalities, by which, in this, as in other countries, nearly all the wealth, accumulated by the labor of the many, has been, and is now, transferred into the pockets of the few.

David A. Wells, one of the most prominent--perhaps at this time, the most prominent--advocate of the monopoly, in this country, states the theory thus:

But inasmuch as your mind seems to be filled with the wildest visions of the excellency of this government, and to be strangely ignorant of its wrongs; and inasmuch as this monopoly of money is, in its practical operation, one of the greatest--possibly the greatest--of all these wrongs, and the one that is most relied upon for robbing the great body of the people, and keeping them in poverty and servitude, it is plainly important that you should have your eyes opened on the subject. I therefore submit, for your consideration, the following self-evident propositions:

Dare you, or any other man, of common sense and common honesty, dispute the truth of that proposition? If not, let us consider that principle established. It will then serve as one of the necessary and infallible guides to the true settlement of all the other questions that remain to be settled.

Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?

Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?

Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?

Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?

Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?

Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?

Are not all these propositions so self-evident, or so easily demonstrated, that they cannot, with any reason, be disputed?

If you feel competent to show the falsehood of any one of them, I hope you will attempt the task.

If, now, you wish to form some rational opinion of the extent of the robbery practised in this country, by the holders of this monopoly of money, you have only to look at the following facts.

There are, in this country, I think, at least twenty-five millions of persons, male and female, sixteen years old, and upwards, mentally and physically capable of running machinery, producing wealth, and supplying their own needs for an independent and comfortable subsistence.

Unless they can get this capital, they must all either work at a disadvantage, or not work at all. A very large portion of them, to save themselves from starvation, have no alternative but to sell their labor to others, at just such prices these others choose to pay. And these others choose to pay only such prices as are far below what the laborers could produce, if they themselves had the necessary capital to work with.

But this needed capital your lawmakers arbitrarily forbid them to have; and for no other reason than to reduce them to the condition of servants; and subject them to all such extortions as their employers--the holders of the privileged money--may choose to practise upon them.

If, now, you ask me where these twenty-five thousand millions of dollars of money capital, which these laborers need, are to come from, I answer:

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet