NO TREASON

The complete series contains “No Treason. No. I” (1867), “No Treason. No. II. The Constitution” (1867), & “No Treason. No. VI. The Constitution of No Authority” (1870). Although the three-part series is numbered 1, 2, and 6, there were only ever three parts to the series, in which Spooner argues that the individual is not bound to obey the American constitution because it justified slavery and otherwise violated individual rights. Lysander Spooner (January 19, 1808 – May 14, 1887) was an American political philosopher, essayist, pamphlet writer, Unitarian, abolitionist, legal theorist, and entrepreneur of the nineteenth century. He was a strong advocate of the labor movement and severely anti-authoritarian and individualist in political views. Spooner, a lawyer, starts No Authority by examining its potential validity as a binding contract, pointing out that the US Constitution could have no inherent, lasting authority, except as a contract between men, and that it only claims to be one between the people existing when it was written. Quoting the famous preamble of the Constitution, Spooner then goes on to say that though it cites "posterity", it doesn't claim to have any power to bind that posterity. He then compares the Constitution's authority to a corporation: The corporation can exist past the lifespan of its original owners, but only by people taking ownership of it voluntarily over time, not by some kind of forced ownership by descendents. Additionally, he points out that even if voting counts as voluntarily taking ownership, only about one sixth of Americans (at that time, when slavery had just ended and women could not vote) had historically been allowed to vote. Even then, only those who voted for an American politician could be said to have consented to the Constitution, not those who voted against, and only for the span of time he voted for (every two years, for example). Even voting, Spooner argues, is not consensual itself, because each potential voter is faced with the choice of either voting, which makes him a master of others, or abstaining, which makes him a slave of those who do vote. And those whose supported candidate loses can't really be considered to have bindingly supported the Constitution, as they lost, and anyway some may vote specifically with the intent of undermining the Constitution. He then tallies all people who might claim to support the constitution, making a case for why each general grouping of them do not actually support it or have the capacity for informed consent. For example, those who would use it for legal plunder, and those who do not really understand it, or else they would not support it. Taxes, Lysander states, cannot be claimed as proof of consent, because they are compulsory, therefore not consensual. Honest robbers, he says, at least don't claim to be protecting you, or to impose his will upon you after receipt of your money. He describes government as a group of dishonest robbers who will not rob you directly, but will secretly appoint one of their member to come and rob you in their name, going on to describe a typical protection racket. He then describes a scenario in which people who resist subjugation might be killed, even by the hundreds of thousands. Written in 1867, this reflects the recent conquest of the Confederate States of America by the US. Spooner was an outspoken abolitionist (writing The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1845) and advocate of universal freedom and natural rights, but had been horrified by the brutality of the war, and the lack of legitimate constitution basis for violently conquering people who wanted to leave a federation that had been consensually joined only by their ancestors.