Lysander Spooner Quotes & Sayings (Page 6)

“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.”

“If it be said that the consent of the strongest party in a nation, is all that is necessary to justify the establishment of a government that shall have authority over the weaker party, it may be answered that the most despotic governments in the world rest upon that very principle, viz.: the consent of the strongest party.”

“The right of absolute and irresponsible dominion is the right of property, and the right of property is the right of absolute, irresponsible dominion. The two are identical; the one necessarily implying the other.”

“Doing a thing by law, or according to law, is only carrying the law into execution. And punishing a man by, or according to, the sentence or judgment of his peers, is only carrying that sentence or judgment into execution.”

“The only security men can have for their political liberty, consists in keeping their money in their own pockets.”

“The right of revolution, which tyrants, in mockery, accord to mankind, is no legal right under a government; it is only a natural right to overturn a government.”

“A slave government is an oligarchy; and one, too, of the most arbitrary and criminal character.”

“Our Constitution does not profess to have been established simply by the majority, but by 'the people' - the minority as much as the majority.”

“Money is the great instrumentality for manufacturing.”

“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.”