Lysander Spooner

And yet this colossal crime--like every other crime that congress chooses to commit--is sanctioned by its servile, rotten, and stinking court.

Such a monopoly of food would have been no clearer violation of men's natural rights, than is the present monopoly of money.

And substantially all the industrial and financial troubles of that period have been the natural consequences of the monopoly.

But if congress had put this prohibition distinctly in the form of a penalty, the usurpation would have been so barefaced--so destitute of all color of constitutional authority--that congress dared not risk the consequences.

And all these lying lawmakers and courts know it.

And this it has succeeded in doing for the last twenty years; to the destruction of the rights, and the impoverishment and immeasurable injury of all the people, except the few holders of the monopoly.

Its whole object is simply to deter everybody--except those specially licensed--from performing this innocent, useful, and necessary act.

It is not levied upon property, or persons, as such, but only upon a certain act, or upon persons for doing a certain act; an act that if not only perfectly innocent and lawful in itself, but that is naturally and intrinsically useful, and…

And it is imposed solely for the purpose of establishing a practically omnipotent monopoly in the hands of a few.

This prohibitory tax--so-called--is therefore really a penalty imposed upon the exercise of men's natural right to create and distribute wealth, and provide for their own and each other's wants.

It is a prohibition upon the exercise of men's natural right to lend and hire such money capital as all men need to enable them to create and distribute wealth, and supply their own wants, and provide for their own happiness.

This prohibition upon the issue of all notes, except those issued, or specially licensed, by the government, is a prohibition upon all freedom of industry and traffic.