Lysander Spooner: “Is there any one of these men, who studies justice as a science, and regards that alone in all his professional…”

And yet these reasons, which are really no reasons at all, are the only ones, so far as I know, that have ever been offered for this absurd and brutal doctrine.

It is also sheer impudence, on their part, to assume that their commands are at all necessary to teach other men what is, and what is not, justice.

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

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