Lysander Spooner

There is not a single human right, which the government of the United States recognises as inviolable.

Now, sir, this is the real character of the government of the United States, as it is of all other lawmaking governments.

In allowing them this liberty, it does not at all recognize their right to it, but only consults its own interests.

But it will do this for its own good, and not for theirs.

The most tyrannical government will, therefore, if it have any sense, leave its victims enough liberty to enable them to provide for their own subsistence, to pay their taxes, and to render such military or other service as the government…

Therefore the very idea of a lawmaking government necessarily implies a denial of all such things as individual liberty, or individual rights.

It is an absurdity to say that a man has any rights of his own, if other men, whether calling themselves a government, or by any other name, have the right to take them from him, without his consent.

Plainly, unless all a man's natural rights are inviolable by lawmakers, none of them are.

The violation of any one of these rights, by lawmakers, is equivalent to the assertion of a right to violate all of them.

The denial of any one of these rights is therefore equivalent to a denial of all the others.

No one of these rights is any more sacred or inviolable in its nature, than are all the others.

If any one of these natural rights may be arbitrarily taken from him by other men, all of them may be taken from him on the same reason.