Lysander Spooner: “And if an individual attempts to exercise this natural right, the government punishes him as a trespasser and a…”

It was a principle of the Common Law, as it is of the law of nature, and of common sense, that no man can be taxed without his personal consent.

Yet the codes of the most celebrated kings are very small, and were little more than compilations of immemorial customs.

When two men meet one upon the highway, or in the wilderness, have they a right to dispose of his life, liberty, or property at their pleasure, simply because they are the more numerous party?

They were even allowed to grant pardon to criminals, and to correct by their clemency the rigors of justice.