Lysander Spooner

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

And all these lying lawmakers and courts know it.

It no more authorizes taxation for the purpose of establishing monopolies of any kind whatever, than it does for taking openly and boldly all the property of the many, and giving it outright to a few.

For these reasons, they serve well as standards--are perhaps the best standards we can have--by which to measure the value of all other money, as well as other property.

I think his record does not furnish a single instance, in which he ever vindicated men's natural rights, in opposition to the arbitrary legislation of congress.

They all have the same end in view as his false definitions; that is, to establish the principle that governments have all power, and the people no rights.

All men's natural rights are co-extensive with natural law, the law of justice; or justice as a science.

It then became his sworn constitutional duty to scrutinize severely every act of congress, and to condemn, as unconstitutional, all that should violate any of these natural rights.

So, too, every man has, by nature, a right to judge of, and enforce, the rights, and judge of, and redress the wrongs, of any and all other men.

This right is included in his natural right to maintain justice between man and man, and to protect the injured party against the wrongdoer.

No one could justify, or excuse, his wrong act, by saying that a power, or authority, to do it had been delegated to him, by any other men, however numerous.

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.