No Treason:
The Constitution of No Authority (an excerpt)
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.1
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:
We, the people of the United States (that is,
the people then existing in the United States), in order to form
a more perfect union, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America. |
It
is plain, in the first place, that this language, as an agreement,
purports to be only what it at most really was, viz., a contract between
the people then existing; and, of necessity, binding, as a contract,
only upon those then existing. In the second place, the language
neither expresses nor implies that they had any right or power, to bind
their "posterity" to live under it. It does not say that their "posterity"
will, shall, or must live under it. It only says, in effect, that
their hopes and motives in adopting it were that it might prove useful
to their posterity, as well as to themselves, by promoting their union,
safety, tranquillity, liberty, etc ....
...
The language does not assert nor at all imply, any right, power, or disposition,
on the part of the original parties to the agreement, to compel their "posterity"
to live under it. If they had intended to bind their posterity to
live under it, they should have said that their objective was, not "to
secure to them the blessings of liberty," but to make slaves of them;
for if their "posterity" are bound to live under it, they are nothing less
than the slaves of their foolish, tyrannical, and dead grandfathers.
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." It supposes itself to have,
and speaks of itself as having, perpetual existence, as a single individuality.
Moreover,
no body of men, existing at any one time, have the power to create a perpetual
corporation. A corporation can become practically perpetual only
by the voluntary accession of new members, as the old ones die off.
But for this voluntary accession of new members, the corporation necessarily
dies with the death of those who originally composed it.
Legally
speaking, therefore, there is, in the Constitution, nothing that professes
or attempts to bind the "posterity" of those who established it.
If,
then, those who established the Constitution, had no power to bind, and
did not attempt to bind, their posterity, the question arises, whether
their posterity have bound themselves. If they have done so, they
can have done so in only one or both of these two ways, viz., by voting,
and paying taxes ....![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
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This essay was written in 1869 |
Letters to the Editor
Dear Frontiersman
Can't
let Flag Day pass without telling you I thought your June issue was the
very best! Especially page 2 — if you want some specific comment,
Anarchy,
Monarchy, Malarkey.
Bet
you'll have some good comments on the Denver trial next time (McVeigh,
who else?)
— Shirley: Urbana, Illinois
208 346-6406 (fax
or zmodem)
Frontiersman@ida.net |
Frontiersman
479 E. 700 N., Firth, Idaho 83236 |
July 1997
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