"NO TREASON" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spooner Lysander)

Date: Thu, 19 Oct 89 12:46:53 PDT
From: [email protected] (Kevin S. Van Horn)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Spooner's _No_Treason_

Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) was a Massachussetts lawyer noted for his
vigorous and brilliant opposition to the encroachment of the State upon
the liberty of the individual. His writings on the unconstitutionality of
slavery influenced pre-Civil War thought. His challenge to the postal
monopoly (he set up a thriving private post) resulted in an Act of Congress
sharply reducing postage rates. Unfortunately, he was so successful that
Congress finally outlawed his enterprise.

The following is the first of a several-part posting of Spooner's work,
"No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority," which _Playboy_ magazine
said "may be the most subversive document ever penned in this nation."
Due to the lack of italic characters in ASCII, I have used uppercase to
indicate italicized words.

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NO TREASON
The Constitution of No Authority

by Lysander Spooner

I.

The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no
authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and
man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between
persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract
between persons living eighty years ago. [This essay was written in
1869.] And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between
persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be
competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts. Furthermore,
we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people
then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to
express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those
persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now.
Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. AND
THE CONSTITUTION, SO FAR AS IT WAS THEIR CONTRACT, DIED WITH THEM. They
had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children.
It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they
COULD bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them.
That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement
between any body but "the people" THEN existing; nor does it, either
expressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their
part, to bind anybody but themselves. Let us see. Its language is: