No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority
This month I’m looking at other ways government could work…or in case of this weeks book, some of the flaws with the Constitution, making this weeks book No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority by Lysander Spooner.
Now, actually, before I get into the book itself, I want to provide a VERY brief biography of Lysander Spooner. Spooner was a 19th century early abolitionist, a lawyer, and an anarchist. He was born in 1808 and died in 1887, so he lived to see and through the absolute horrors of the American Civil War. Bless him, he was ideologically consistent. In 1845 he wrote The Unconstitutionality of Slavery. And in 1867….just 2 years after the war had ended….he wrote No Treason. Which explains why the North was WRONG for fighting the civil war. Which is a damn bold stance to take while the countries wounds were still raw and Andrew Johnson was battling Congress trying to get concessions for the states as they rejoined the Union.
So why would he take such a controversial stance at such a fraught time in US History? Well….much like former President John Tyler, Spooner had read the Constitution. And understood it. And understood that without having actually signed their names to the contract implied there in, the men who fought for the south were incapable of committing treason, because they had agreed to nothing.
This is a point, incidentally, that remains valid today. There is a reason that when our armed forces are inducted, they swear an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. So, incidentally, do our congress critters and president. You know who doesn’t swear that oath? You and me. We the people. Which kind of begs the question: Who are the domestic enemies? Well Spooner argues only those who have physically signed the Constitution can be bound to it as a contract. And since literally no one has signed the Constitution, not even those that wrote it, no one is actually bound to it’s dicta.
He makes this argument citing old English law, where even those who could not read or write were required to make their mark on a contract before it was valid. That mark might only be an X, but without it, a person is not bound to a contract.
And in his introduction, Spooner comes out swinging, saying “On the part of the North, the war was carried on, not to liberate the slaves, but by a government that had always perverted and violated the Constitution, to keep the slaves in bondage; and was still willing to do so, if the slaveholders could be thereby induced to stay in the Union.”
This is entirely accurate. Abolition of slavery did not enter the equation until after Lincoln produced the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves ONLY in states that were rebelling, protecting the institution of slavery in the states that remained in the north, namely Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. These four states retained their slaves all the way up until the passage and adoption of the 13th amendment abolishing slavey was adopted on December 6, 1865, a full 7 months and 4 weeks after the war ended.
Lincoln even said “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”
So clearly, the Civil War was NOT about slavery. It was about preserving the Union.
Spooner goes on to say “The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.”
He then points out that we are all, at this point, slaves, for we continue to live under a government that no longer serves us, but has instead made servants of us. Slaves of us. They even steal from us weekly in the form of income tax….although that would not happen until 1913, 26 years after Spooner died. Along with the creation of the Federal Reserve, which Spooner probably rolled over in his grave when those two things happened.
He already had some strong opinions about Central Banking and pointed out that a not insignificant number of world governments are effectively owned by the Rothschilds, who bankrolled said governments.
He makes much of the secret ballot, which is kind of where I feel he missed the mark. The ballots are secret so that we who do the voting can vote for who we want without fear of repercussion. And the congress critters…their votes on the bills being passed are very public. There are not supposed to be any secret ballots in congress, and you can go online now and look up how your representatives are voting. Some of you will be very surprised, and probably unpleasantly so, to see how your representatives are failing to actually represent you.
The Constitution begins with “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and out prosperity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Spooner says “The meaning of this is simply: We, the people of the United States, acting freely and voluntarily as individuals, consent and agree that we will cooperate with each other in sustaining such a government as is provided for in this Constitution. The necessity for the consent of “the people” is implied in this declaration. The whole authority of the Constitution rests upon it. If they did not consent, it was of no validity.”
Basically, the people of the south had withdrawn their consent. And so the Union’s war against the south was unjust, under the dicta of the Constitution as it was written and agreed upon to be the law of the land.
And because the United States has shown itself to be as prone to corruption as any other power mad monarchy, we the people can withdraw our consent whenever we like.
Now, having said that, there is no way of guaranteeing less horrifying results than that of the first Civil War, which resulted in total casualties, North and South, of between 620,000 and 850,000 dead. And there’s a lot more people now, and the weapons are exponentially more horrifying, so I would guess death tallies in the millions if America ever fought a Civil War 2.0. Hopefully, we never have to find out.
But Spooner’s point remains valid. We the people have to consent to the government. That consent can be withdrawn at any time. These are points that are no longer taught in school. I was taught it in school. We had to memorize that preamble to the Constitution. But no…they teach kids that the Civil War was fought over slavery. And that may be why the south withdrew. But that is NOT why the north declined to let them leave. It was very much about power. And showing who has it. And it is not We the People.
This book was an interesting read, and I think he makes some excellent points about consent and power, although he does sidetrack with the ballot voting thing and his rant against the Rothschild’s. I mean, it’s not a secret or anything, although it hasn’t always been the Rothschild’s that held the keys to the kingdom. There was that time JP Morgan bailed out the United States during Cleveland’s second term. But it’s absolutely true….those who have the gold make the rules. Which is why Congress critters use their connections to make sure they always have gold.
