If this administration be in accordance with the arbitrary will of the legislator that is, if his will, as it appears in his statutes, be the highest rule of decision known to the judicial tribunals, the government is a despotism, and the people are slaves.
Spooner argues that a government becomes despotic when its laws are enforced without regard for natural justice.
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They are every day committing errors, which would be crimes, but for their ignorance of the law.
Juries would refuse to enforce a tax against a man who had never agreed to pay it.
It would be a solecism and absurdity in government to allow such consequences as these.
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…