The code of Alfred would not fill twelve pages of the statute book of Massachusetts, and was little or nothing else than a compilation of the laws of Moses, and the Saxon customs, evidently collected from considerations of convenience, rather than enacted on the principle of authority.
Spooner critiques the brevity and simplicity of Massachusetts law compared to historical legal codes.
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It would also be making them consent to what they regard as the destruction of their own rights.
But there is no reason why a judge should have the power of punishing, for contempt, any more than for any other offence.
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…
Any restriction upon the exercise of this right is a restriction upon his rightful power of providing for, and accomplishing, his own well-being.