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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. "
Lysander Spooner
Support
Argument
Jesus
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" Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can be legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction. "
Lysander Spooner
Slavery
Natural
Positive
" If men were but to read the New Testament with the same tone and emphasis, with which they do other books, and were to keep out of mind the idea of its being sacred, they would be disgusted with the credulity, and the want of intellect, reason and judgment, that is apparent in it. "
Lysander Spooner
Men
Mind
New
" A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases. "
Lysander Spooner
Special
Men
Government
" No court presumes to tell a jury that they are to try a capital case with the same indifference and unconcern as to consequences, that they would a case where the results of their decision would be less important. "
Lysander Spooner
Consequences
Try
Important
" When a man says he is building a house for himself and his posterity, he does not mean to be understood as saying that he has any thought of binding them, nor is it to be inferred that he is so foolish as to imagine that he has any right or power to bind them, to live in it. "
Lysander Spooner
Power
House
Live
" It is perfectly clear, in the first place, that the constitution of the United States did not, of itself, create or establish slavery as a new institution; or even give any authority to the state governments to establish it as a new institution. The greatest sticklers for slavery do not claim this. "
Lysander Spooner
Slavery
Create
Constitution
" 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
Men
Me
Face
" 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
Exercise
Jury
Justice
" The right and the physical power of the people to resist injustice, are really the only securities that any people ever can have for their liberties. Practically no government knows any limit to its power but the endurance of the people. "
Lysander Spooner
Power
People
Government
" Now a slave is not 'held' by any legal contract, obligation, duty, or authority, which the laws will enforce. He is 'held' only by brute force. One person beats another until the latter will obey him, work for him, if he require it, or do nothing if he require it. "
Lysander Spooner
Legal
Work
Nothing
" It is a natural impossibility for any man to make a binding contract, by which he shall surrender to others a single one of what are commonly called his 'natural, inherent, inalienable rights.' "
Lysander Spooner
Surrender
Rights
Man
" The number who actually consented to the Constitution of the United States, at the first, was very small. Considered as the act of the whole people, the adoption of the Constitution was the merest farce and imposture, binding upon nobody. "
Lysander Spooner
Nobody
Constitution
Small
" To deprive mankind of their natural right and power of creating wealth for themselves, is as great a tyranny as it is to rob them of it after they have created it. And this is done by all laws against honest banking. "
Lysander Spooner
Done
Tyranny
Wealth
" Majorities and minorities cannot rightfully be taken at all into account in deciding questions of justice. "
Lysander Spooner
Minorities
Cannot
Questions
" A married woman has the same natural right to acquire and hold property, and to make all contracts that she is mentally competent to make reasonably, as has a married man, or any other man. "
Lysander Spooner
Woman
Right
Man
" A man who is without capital, and who, by prohibitions upon banking, is practically forbidden to hire any, is in a condition elevated but one degree above that of a chattel slave. He may live; but he can live only as the servant of others; compelled to perform such labor, and to perform it at such prices, as they may see fit to dictate. "
Lysander Spooner
Slave
Labor
Man
" A traitor is a betrayer - one who practices injury, while professing friendship. Benedict Arnold was a traitor, solely because, while professing friendship for the American cause, he attempted to injure it. An open enemy, however criminal in other respects, is no traitor. "
Lysander Spooner
Cause
Friendship
Open
" Our Constitution does not profess to have been established simply by the majority, but by 'the people' - the minority as much as the majority. "
Lysander Spooner
Majority
Minority
Constitution
" A contract for the establishment of government, being nothing but a voluntary contract between individuals for their mutual benefit, differs, in nothing that is essential to its validity, from any other contract between man and man, or between nation and nation. "
Lysander Spooner
Other
Man
Nothing
" 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
Oppression
Government
Him
" A slave government is an oligarchy; and one, too, of the most arbitrary and criminal character. "
Lysander Spooner
Character
Government
Most
" There is not, in the Constitution, a syllable that implies that persons, born within the territorial limits of the United States, have allegiance imposed upon them on account of their birth in the country, or that they will be judged by any different rule, on the subject of treason, than persons of foreign birth. "
Lysander Spooner
Born
Birth
Constitution
" Who are ever taxed? Individuals only. Who have property that can be taxed? Individuals only. Who can give their consent to be taxed? Individuals only. Who are ever taxed without their consent? Individuals only. Who, then, are robbed, if taxed without their consent? Individuals only. "
Lysander Spooner
Property
Without
Give
" 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
Mental
Legal
Age
" 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
Search
Others
Man
" If the works of Jesus were so much more wonderful than man could perform as to deserve to be called miracles, was it not nonsense to caution his disciples so strongly against being deluded by the works of others? "
Lysander Spooner
Others
Nonsense
Miracles
" 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
Silver
Gold
Dollar
" In reality there is no such thing as an inflation of prices, relatively to gold. There is such a thing as a depreciated paper currency. "
Lysander Spooner
Prices
Reality
Gold
" Vices are usually pleasurable, at least for the time being, and often do not disclose themselves as vices, by their effects, until after they have been practised for many years; perhaps for a lifetime. "
Lysander Spooner
Been
Years
Vices
" If taxation without consent is robbery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to have, a single honest dollar in its treasury. If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized. "
Lysander Spooner
Never
Now
Honest