Lysander Spooner

It is punishing a man as a criminal, for simply trying to save his property from robbers.

All taxes, levied upon a man's property for the support of government, without his consent, are mere robbery; a violation of his natural right of property.

A man's natural right of property, in a commodity he has bought in a foreign country, is intrinsically as sacred and inviolable as it is in a commodity produced at home.

And it is a plain violation of one's right, for a government to make any distinction between them.

If it really exists for that purpose, it is plainly bound to make each kind of property pay its proper proportion, and only its proper proportion, of the cost of protecting all kinds.

To levy upon a few kinds the cost of protecting all, is a naked robbery of the holders of those few kinds, for the benefit of the holders of all other kinds.

But the pretence that heavy taxes are levied upon imports, solely, or mainly, for the support of government, while light taxes, or no taxes at all, are levied upon property at home, is an utterly false pretence.

They are levied upon the imported commodity, mainly, if not solely, for the purpose of enabling the producers of competing home commodities to extort from consumers a higher price than the home commodities would bring in free and open…

And this additional price is sheer robbery, and is known to be so.

Thus the amounts that go to the support of the government, and also the amounts that go into the pockets of the home producers, in the higher prices they get for their goods, are all sheer robberies; and nothing else.

This is the great argument that is relied on to justify the robbery.

If the authority be vested in the government, the governmnt is absolute, and the people have no liberties except such as the government sees fit to indulge them with.