Lysander Spooner: “Was a more absolute, irresponsible government than that ever invented?”

Therefore all their laws, as they call them,--that is, all the laws of their own making,--have no color of authority or obligation.

And nobody is bound to take the least notice of them, unless it be to trample them under foot, as usurpations.

It was simply, that they would neither convict the innocent, nor acquit the guilty.

From the sale of that justice which every citizen has a right to demand, it was an easy transition to withhold or deny it.