Their pretences that they have “Saved the Country,” and “Preserved our Glorious Union,” are frauds like all the rest of their pretences. By them they mean simply that they have subjugated, and maintained their power over, an unwilling people. This they call “Saving the Country;” as if an enslaved and subjugated people—or as if any people kept in subjection by the sword (as it is intended that all of us shall be hereafter)—could be said to have any country. This, too, they call “Preserving our Glorious Union;” as if there could be said to be any Union, glorious or inglorious, that was not voluntary. Or as if there could be said to be any union between masters and slaves; between those who conquer, and those who are subjugated.
All these cries of having “abolished slavery,” of having “saved the country,” of having “preserved the union,” of establishing “a government of consent,” and of “maintaining the national honor,” are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats—so transparent that they ought to decieve no one—when uttered as justifications for the war, or for the government that has succeeded the war, or for now compelling the people to pay the cost of the war, or for compelling anybody to support a government that he does not want.
The lesson taught by all these facts is this: As long as mankind continue to pay “National Debts,” so-called—that is, so long as they are such dupes and cowards as to pay for being cheated, plundered, enslaved, and murdered—so long there will be enough to lend the money for those purposes; and with that money a plenty of tools, called soldiers, can be hired to keep them in subjection. But when they refuse any longer to pay for being thus cheated, plundered, enslaved, and murdered, they will cease to have cheats, and usurpers, and robbers, and murderers and blood-money loan-mongers for masters.
Appendix
Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by anybody, as a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now binding upon nobody; and is, moreover, such an one as no people can ever hereafter be expected to consent to, except as they may be forced to do so at the point of the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance what its true legal meaning, as a contract, is. Nevertheless, the writer thinks it proper to say that, in his opinion, the Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He has heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such is the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain—that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
Endnotes
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Suppose it be “the best government on earth,” does that prove its own goodness, or only the badness of all other governments? ↩
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The very men who drafted it, never signed it in any way to bind themselves by it, as a contract. And not one of them probably ever would have signed it in any way to bind himself by it, as a contract. ↩
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I have personally examined the statute books of the following States, viz.: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Nevada, California, and Oregon, and find that in all these States the English statute has been reenacted, sometimes with modifications, but generally enlarging its operations, and is now in force.
The following are some of the provisions of the Massachusetts statute:
“No action shall be brought in any of the following cases, that is to say: …”
“To charge a person upon a special promise to answer for the debt, default, or misdoings of another: …”
“Upon a contract for the sale of lands, tenements, hereditaments, or of any interest in, or concerning them; or …”
“Upon an agreement that is not to be performed within one year from the writing thereof:”
“Unless the promise, contract, or agreement, upon which such action is brought, or some memorandum or note thereof, is in writing, and signed by the party to be charged therewith, or by some person thereunto by him lawfully authorized: …”
“No contract for the sale of goods, wares, or merchandise, for the price of fifty dollars or more, shall be good or valid, unless the purchaser accepts and receives part of the goods so sold, or gives something in earnest to bind the bargain, or in part payment; or unless some note or memorandum in writing of the bargain is made and signed by the party to be charged thereby, or by some person thereunto by him lawfully authorized.”
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And this two-thirds vote may be but two-thirds of a quorum—that is two-thirds of a majority—instead of two-thirds of the whole. ↩
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Of what appreciable value is it to any man, as an individual, that he is allowed a voice in choosing these public masters? His voice is only one of several millions. ↩
Colophon
No Treason
was published in 1867 by
Lysander Spooner.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2010 for
Wikisource
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Columns of the Temple of Neptune at Paestum,
a painting completed in 1838 by
Constantin Hansen.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces
