Monday, June 25, 2007

Lysander Spooner's Letter to Thomas F. Baynard

Since the founding of these United States, individuals have attempted to live freely.  The success of their endeavor to live freely, encroached upon from the start, continues to be impinged upon by the state.

Lysander Spooner addressed this impingement in many of his writings, and Lysander Spooner’s letter to Thomas F. Baynard provides us with just one example of his thinking regarding freedom from which we can learn.  A short excerpt.

Yet under the pretense that this instrument gives them the right of an arbitrary and irresponsible dominion over the whole people of the United States, Congress has now gone on, for ninety years and more, filling great volumes with laws of their own device, which the people at large have never read, nor even seen nor ever will read or see; and of whose legal meanings it is morally impossible that they should ever know anything. Congress has never dared to require the people even to read these laws. Had it done so, the oppression would have been an intolerable one; and the people, rather than endure it, would have either rebelled, and overthrown the government, or would have fled the country. Yet these laws, which Congress has not dared to require the people even to read, it has compelled them, at the point of the bayonet, to obey.

Via Roderick T. Long’s website, which provides links to other writings of interest to those who value living freely.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/25 at 06:01 AM
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