Lysander Spooner

Thus is the people's will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil policy, municipal, State, and federal; and this is the price of our liberty, and the inspiration of our faith in the republic.

Every citizen owes the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants, and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness.

Do they not make all the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, by which all wealth is created?

Do they not now--at least so far as you will permit them to do it--grow their own food, build their own houses, make their own clothing, print their own books?

And do you think they will never get their eyes open to see what blockheads, or impostors, you and your lawmakers are?

Or that they would do it, not only without jar or friction, but as their highest duty and pleasure, if their powers were not manacled by the absurd and villainous laws you propose to execute upon them?

There is nothing definite, nothing real, nothing tangible, nothing honest, about them.

Or else they are the senseless talk of a mere political parrot, who repeats words he has been taught to utter, without knowing their meaning.

What gang of robbers, quarrelling over the division of their plunder, could exhibit a more shameful picture than you thus acknowledge to be shown by the government of the United States?

You know that all, or very nearly all, the legislation of congress is devoted to these various schemes of robbery; and that little, or no, legislation goes through, except by means of such bargains as these lawmakers may enter into with…

And yet another class of lawmakers have demanded great appropriations, or loans, of money, or grants of lands, to enterprises intended to give great wealth to a few, at the expense of everybody else.

Have you been blind, all these years, to the existence, or the effects, of this monopoly of money?