Notwithstanding these sales and gifts, the fact remains that the government claims the original ownership of the lands; and thus denies the natural right of individuals to take possession of and cultivate them.
Spooner argues that government claims of ownership deny individuals their natural rights to land.
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And nobody is bound to take the least notice of them, unless it be to trample them under foot, as usurpations.
Therefore all their laws, as they call them,--that is, all the laws of their own making,--have no color of authority or obligation.
But there is no reason why a judge should have the power of punishing, for contempt, any more than for any other offence.
And whenever any number of men, calling themselves a government, do anything to another man, or to his property, which they had no right to do as individuals they thereby declare themselves trespassers, robbers, or murderers, according to…