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Lysander Spooner

Lysander Spooner Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Lysander Spooner Quotes

“If taxation without consent is robbery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to have, a single honest dollar in its treasury. If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.”

IfsStatesGovernmentUnitedUnited StatesHonestBandDollarsConsentTaxationTreasuryState GovernmentRobbersRobberyUnited States Government
Author:Lysander Spooner
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“It cannot be said that the Constitution formed 'the people of the United States,' for all time, into a corporation. It does not speak of 'the people' as a corporation, but as individuals. A corporation does not describe itself as 'we,' nor as 'people,' nor as 'ourselves.' Nor does a corporation, in legal language, have any 'posterity.'”

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Book:Let's Abolish Government
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“The commerce of a free people is many times more valuable than that of slaves. Freemen produce and consume vastly more than slaves. They have therefore more to buy and more to sell. Hence the free states have a direct pecuniary interest in the civil freedom of all the other states. Commerce between free and slave states is not reciprocal or equal.”

PeopleStatesInterestProduceEqualDirectSellsSlaveValuableCommerceReciprocalFreemanFree State
Book:The Unconstitutionality of Slavery
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“There is not, in the Constitution, a syllable that implies that persons, born within the territorial limits of the United States, have allegiance imposed upon them on account of their birth in the country, or that they will be judged by any different rule, on the subject of treason, than persons of foreign birth.”

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Book:Individualist anarchist pamphlets
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“I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour - for the horse was soon tackled - was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.”

TwoStatesNextHoursPartyHalfMorningFieldsHighestHorsePrisonShoesMilesHillsMidstJailImpatientErrandsHuckleberry
Author:Lysander Spooner
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“The purpose and effect of [land titles] have been to maintain, in the hands of robber, or slave holding class, a monopoly of all lands, and, as far as possible, of all other means of creating wealth; and thus to keep the great body of labourers in such a state of poverty and dependence, as would compel them to sell their labour to their tyrants for the lowest prices at which life could be sustained”

MeanHas BeensStatesBodyHandsPurposeWealthClassPovertyLandEffectsCreatingSellsSlaveTitlesLabourTyrantsDependenceLowestMonopolyRobbersLabourersCreating Wealth
Author:Lysander Spooner
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