Majorities, as such, afford no guarantees for justice. They are men of the same nature as minorities. They have the same passions for fame, power, and money, as minorities; and are liable and likely to be equally - perhaps more than equally, because more boldly - rapacious, tyrannical and unprincipled, if intrusted with power.
Interpretation
Majorities do not inherently ensure just outcomes, as they can be driven by the same flaws as minorities.
This quote by Lysander Spooner highlights the idea that the presence of a majority does not guarantee fairness or justice. Instead, majorities, like minorities, are composed of individuals who can be driven by the same ambitions and corrupt tendencies; therefore, they can also become tyrannical and unprincipled when given power. Spooner argues that having a majority can lead to the risk of oppression, suggesting that simply being part of a larger group does not equate to moral superiority or better governance.
In practice
In a discussion on the ethics of voting systems and their implications for justice.
The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that-however bloody-can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.
For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.
A married woman has the same natural right to acquire and hold property, and to make all contracts that she is mentally competent to make reasonably, as has a married man, or any other man.
Slavery, if it can be legalized at all, can be legalized only by positive legislation. Natural law gives it no aid. Custom imparts to it no legal sanction.
Those who deny the right of a jury to protect an individual in resisting an unjust law of the government, deny him all defence whatsoever against oppression.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.
There's nothing so passionate as a vested interest disguised as an intellectual conviction.
The different ness of races, moreover, is no evidence of superiority or of inferiority. This merely indicates that each race has certain gifts which the others do not possess.
I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either.
If we care about the average working American, then Wal-Mart matters. A lot.
This woman is beautiful and clever: but how much cleverer she would have become if she were not beautiful!
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