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. The women, children, and blacks, of course, were not asked to give their consent. In addition to this, there
Introduction by Murray N. Rothbard We are all indebted to Carl Watner for uncovering an unknown work by the great Lysander Spooner, one that managed to escape the editor of Spooner’s Collected Works . Both the title and the substance of “Vices are not Crimes” highlight the unique role that morality and moral principle had for Spooner among the
[This article is excerpted from Let’s Abolish Government .] The free administration of justice was a principle of the common law, and it must necessarily be a part of every system of government which is not designed to be an engine in the hands of the rich for the oppression of the poor. In saying that the free administration of justice was a
[ No Treason , no. 1, was first printed in 1867, just after the American Civil War. An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Brad O’Connell, is available for download .] The question of treason is distinct from that of slavery, and it is the same that it would have been if free states, instead of slave states, had seceded. On the part of
[ From No Treason No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority . ] Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article . All the voting that has ever taken place under the Constitution, has been of such a kind that it not only did not pledge the whole people to support the Constitution, but it did not even pledge any one of them to do so, as the
Lysander Spooner has many great distinctions in the history of political thought. For one thing, he was undoubtedly the only constitutional lawyer in history to evolve into an individualist anarchist; for another, he became steadily and inexorably more radical as he grew older. From the time that Benjamin R. Tucker founded the scintillating
El número de personas que realmente consintieron la Constitución de los Estados Unidos, al principio, era muy pequeño. Considerada como un acto de todo el pueblo, la adopción de la Constitución fue una mera farsa e impostura, que no obligaba a nadie. A las mujeres, los niños y los negros, por supuesto, no se les pidió su consentimiento. Además de
Prólogo de Murray N. Rothbard Todos estamos en deuda con Carl Watner por descubrir una obra desconocida del gran Lysander Spooner, una que se las arregló para escaparse del editor de las Obras Completas de Spooner. Tanto el título como el contenido de «Los vicios no son crímenes» destacan el papel especial que tenían la moralidad y el principio
Todas las votaciones que han tenido lugar bajo la Constitución han sido de tal naturaleza que no sólo no comprometieron a toda la gente a defender la Constitución, sino que ni han comprometido a ninguno de ellosa hacerlo, como lo demuestran las siguientes consideraciones. En la naturaleza misma de las cosas, el acto de votar no podría vincular a
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The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
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