Written laws were modified and controlled by customs of which no trace can be discovered until after the lapse of centuries, although those usages must have been in constant vigor during the long interval of silence." 1 Palgrave's Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, 58-9.
Spooner highlights that unwritten customs influenced written laws, which may not be evident until much later in history.
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Therefore all their laws, as they call them,--that is, all the laws of their own making,--have no color of authority or obligation.
They cannot claim or expect that the whole people shall practise the folly of taking on trust their pretended superior knowledge, and of committing blindly into their hands all their own interests, liberties, and rights, to be disposed of…
What else than ignorance of the law is it that excuses persons under the years of discretion, and men of imbecile minds?
The people considered their jurisprudence as a part of their inheritance.