A Letter to Grover Cleveland. Lysander Spooner

only human rights. They are the only rights by which any man can protect his own property, liberty, or life against any one who may be disposed to take it away. Consequently they are not things that any set of either blockheads or villains, calling themselves a government, can rightfully take into their own hands, and dispose of at their pleasure, as they have been accustomed to do in this, and in nearly or quite all other countries.

Section V.

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      Sir, I repeat that individual rights are the only human rights. Legally speaking, there are no such things as "public rights," as distinguished from individual rights. Legally speaking, there is no such creature or thing as "the public." The term "the public" is an utterly vague and indefinite one, applied arbitrarily and at random to a greater or less number of individuals, each and every one of whom have their own separate, individual rights, and none others. And the protection of these separate, individual rights is the one only legitimate purpose, for which anything in the nature of a governing, or coercive, power has a right to exist. And these separate, individual rights all rest upon, and can be ascertained only by, the one science of justice.

      Legally speaking, the term "public rights" is as vague and indefinite as are the terms "public health," "public good," "public welfare," and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to describe the separate, private, individual rights of a greater or less number of individuals.

      In so far as the separate, private, natural rights of individuals are secured, in just so far, and no farther, are the "public rights" secured. In so far as the separate, private, natural rights of individuals are disregarded or violated, in just so far are "public rights" disregarded or violated. Therefore all the pretences of so-called lawmakers, that they are protecting "public rights," by violating private rights, are sheer and utter contradictions and frauds. They are just as false and absurd as it would be to say that they are protecting the public health, by arbitrarily poisoning and destroying the health of single individuals.

      The pretence of the lawmakers, that they are promoting the "public good," by violating individual "rights," is just as false and absurd as is the pretence that they are protecting "public rights" by violating "private rights." Sir, the greatest "public good," of which any coercive power, calling itself a government, or by any other name, is capable, is the protection of each and every individual in the quiet and peaceful enjoyment and exercise of all his own natural, inherent, inalienable, individual "rights." This is a "good" that comes home to each and every individual, of whom "the public" is composed. It is also a "good," which each and every one of these individuals, composing "the public," can appreciate. It is a "good," for the loss of which governments can make no compensation whatever. It is a universal and impartial "good," of the highest importance to each and every human being; and not any such vague, false, and criminal thing as the lawmakers—when violating private rights—tell us they are trying to accomplish, under the name of "the public good." It is also the only "equal and exact justice," which you, or anybody else, are capable of securing, or have any occasion to secure, to any human being. Let but this "equal and exact justice" be secured "to all men," and they will then be abundantly able to take care of themselves, and secure their own highest "good." Or if any one should ever chance to need anything more than this, he may safely trust to the voluntary kindness of his fellow men to supply it.

      It is one of those things not easily accounted for, that men who would scorn to do an injustice to a fellow man, in a private transaction—who would scorn to usurp any arbitrary dominion over him, or his property—who would be in the highest degree indignant, if charged with any private injustice—and who, at a moment's warning, would take their lives in their hands, to defend their own rights, and redress their own wrongs—will, the moment they become members of what they call a government, assume that they are absolved from all principles and all obligations that were imperative upon them, as individuals; will assume that they are invested with a right of arbitrary and irresponsible dominion over other men, and other men's property. Yet they are doing this continually. And all the laws they make are based upon the assumption that they have now become invested with rights that are more than human, and that those, on whom their laws are to operate, have lost even their human rights. They seem to be utterly blind to the fact, that the only reason there can be for their existence as a government, is that they may protect those very "rights," which they before scrupulously respected, but which they now unscrupulously trample upon.

Section VI.

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      But you evidently believe nothing of what I have now been saying. You evidently believe that justice is no law at all, unless in cases where the lawmakers may chance to prefer it to any law which they themselves can invent.

      You evidently believe that, a certain paper, called the constitution, which nobody ever signed, which few persons ever read, which the great body of the people never saw, and as to the meaning of which no two persons were ever agreed, is the supreme law of this land, anything in the law of nature—anything in the natural, inherent, inalienable, individual rights of fifty millions of people—to the contrary not withstanding.

      Did folly, falsehood, absurdity, assumption, or criminality ever reach a higher point than that?

      You evidently believe that those great volumes of statutes, which the people at large have never read, nor even seen, and never will read, nor see, but which such men as you and your lawmakers have been manufacturing for nearly a hundred years, to restrain them of their liberty, and deprive them of their natural rights, were all made for their benefit, by men wiser than they—wiser even than justice itself—and having only their welfare at heart!

      You evidently believe that the men who made those laws were duly authorized to make them; and that you yourself have been duly authorized to enforce them. But in this you are utterly mistaken. You have not so much as the honest, responsible scratch of one single pen, to justify you in the exercise of the power you have taken upon yourself to exercise. For example, you have no such evidence of your right to take any man's property for the support of your government, as would be required of you, if you were to claim pay for a single day's honest labor.

      It was once said, in this country, that taxation without consent was robbery. And a seven years' war was fought to maintain that principle. But if that principle were a true one in behalf of three millions of men, it is an equally true one in behalf of three men, or of one man.

      Who are ever taxed? Individuals only. Who have property that can be taxed? Individuals only. Who can give their consent to be taxed? Individuals only. Who are ever taxed without their consent? Individuals only. Who, then, are robbed, if taxed without their consent? Individuals only.

      If taxation without consent is robbery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to have, a single honest dollar in its treasury.

       If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.

      If any man's money can be taken by a so-called government, without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can, and will, hire soldiers to stand over him, compel him to submit to its arbitrary will, and kill him if he resists.

      That your whole claim of a right to any man's money for the support of your government, without his consent, is the merest farce and fraud, is proved by the fact that you have no such evidence of your right to take it, as would be required of you, by one of your own courts, to prove a debt of five dollars, that might be honestly due you.

      You and your lawmakers have no such evidence of your right of dominion over the people of this country, as would be required to prove your right to any material