No Treason

Lysander Spooner lived in the midst of the Golden Age of America and is most famous for his work as an abolitionist philosopher and as the author of this treatise: No Treason. To explain this forgotten philosopher. we must also explain an almost forgotten philosophy — that of Natural Law. Natural Law holds that each human being, regardless of the arbitrary distinctions of biology, is endowed at birth with certain unalienable rights that are superior to whatever “rights” are granted by the law of man. These rights are not given by anyone but are instead inherent to our existence and cannot be rightfully withheld by anyone over another. For Spooner, the fact that the Constitution ensured these rights in its Preamble only to destroy them in the writing that followed was the most shameful hypocrisy. This glaring contradiction was enough for Spooner to declare the entire document null and void, superseded by the Divine Right of humanity to life, liberty, and property. However, as a lawyer, he also could not fail to mention that a contract — whether social or otherwise — is neither valid nor binding upon any parties other than those who consent to it.  Like all great philosophers of human liberation, Lysander Spooner’s name has almost entirely passed from the historical record and certainly from the collective memory of the American people. May his great work, now restored to its former glory, herald a new dawn in the minds of men. True freedom, not the abstract writings of self-selected bureaucrats, exists within each of us as our prime possession. It cannot be circumvented unless we allow it to be usurped. It is for that reason that No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority appears again — to stoke that fire of liberty that has burned within us from the dawn of civilization.