Lysander Spooner

In other words, the theory is, that the smaller the portion of the products of labor, that is given to the laborers, the larger will be the portion that will go into the pockets of the employers.

This theory, then, is that, instead of permitting all mankind to supply each other's wants, by freely exchanging their respective products with each other, the government of each nation should rob the people of every other, by imposing…

This policy of excluding foreign commodities from our markets, is a game that all other governments can play at, as well as our own.

It is, at best, only a robbery of one home laborer--the producer of cotton, tobacco, grain, beef, pork, butter, or cheese--for the benefit of another home laborer--the producer of iron or woolen goods.

Therefore the tax laid upon foreign commodities, that have been bought with the products of our home labor, is as much a robbery of the home laborer, as the same tax would have been, if laid directly upon the products of our home labor.

And this is a plain violation of men's natural rights.

Therefore to deny our right to buy in foreign markets, is to forbid us to sell in foreign markets.

To forbid our own people to buy in the best markets, is equivalent to forbidding them to sell the products of their own labor in the best markets; for they can buy the products of foreign labor, only by giving the products of their own…

And for any government to forbid him to do so, or to obstruct his doing so, or to punish him for doing so, is a violation of his natural right of purchasing property of whom he pleases, and from such motives as he pleases.

And if a man, in our own country--either from motives of profit to himself, or from motives of pity towards the pauper laborers of other countries--chooses to buy the products of the foreign pauper labor, rather than the products of the…

And they deny it for their own benefit solely, and not for the benefit of their laborers.

And none but tyrants and robbers deny that right.