Spooner's Constitution of no authority
So I just read Lysander Spooner's essay/article, No Treason. No. VI, the Constitution of No Authority. It can be found online here... http://www.lysanderspooner.org/bib_new.htm Scroll down to where it says No Treason and click The Constitution of No Authority. This man's life was very interesting to me. Information on it can be found on the website.
The article argues very effectively that we are not bound by the American Constitution and people residing in the territorial area known as the
There is also an interesting attack on the secret ballot. I am not sure if he actually argues for non-secret ballots or just uses the argument to attack the government. Either way, it's worth a read. Check it out if you haven’t read it already.
posted by Joseph Onorati @ 4:22 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Well Joe, that's an awesome article. I loved a lot of Spooner's points, though I'm not sure he accomplishes exactly what he set out to.
I believe the real legal argument for the authority of the constitution would not be that people pay taxes or that they vote. Spooner does thoroughly demolish these arguments, but there is a third, which I think Spooner dismisses too readily: that the United States is a corporation of its citizens.
The authority to incorporate the United States was granted to the Constitutional Convention by local legislatures, which were in turn incorporations of their local populaces. When said legislatures ratified the Constitution, they were using their powers to add to their citizens citizenship in the new United States. This is given to new citizens either through their own actions, i.e., naturalization, or through the consent of their legal guardians at birth in the birth certificate. Once one is of legal maturity, one can renounce citizenship. If you don't, you are considered to consent to it.
So in order to question the authority of the Constitution, one would need to question the authority of some or all of the local legislatures. This isn't necessarily impossible: e.g., most if not all legislatures had voting restrictions we would now consider downright oppressive, and may have been holdovers from the British Crown's organization of the colonies. And, well, if that organization was valid the Patriots have got a different problem. Basically it just pushes the question one step back.
Just some thoughts I had on reading it.
My favorite quote:
The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other governments, are made up of three classes, viz.: 1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth. 2. Dupes --- a large class, no doubt --- each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a "free man," a "sovereign"; that this is "a free government"; "a government of equal rights," "the best government on earth," and such like absurdities. 3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change.
wow, that was bigger than I realized, heh. But I think this sums up the way things still are so well it would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
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