No man can delegate,... any right of arbitrary dominion over a 3rd person; for that would imply a right in the 1st person, not only to make the 3rd person his slave, but also a right to dispose of him as a slave to still other persons. Any contract to do this is necessarily a criminal one...To call such a contract a “constitution” does not at all lessen its criminality, or add to its validity.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that no individual has the right to impose arbitrary power over another person, as it dehumanizes and enslaves them.
Lysander Spooner argues that one individual cannot justifiably transfer power to control another individual, as doing so would equate to enslaving that person. He suggests that any agreement or contract that allows for such dominion is inherently criminal and retains its wrongful nature regardless of how it is framed, for instance, as a constitution. Essentially, Spooner highlights the moral and ethical implications of authority and power dynamics in society.
In practice
In a discussion about human rights, this quote can highlight the importance of individual autonomy.
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.
Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.
If democracy brings an undemocratic group to power, is that a victory for democracy?
We are obliged to respect, defend and maintain the common bonds of union and fellowship that exist among all members of the human race.
There is no force more potent in the modern world than stupidity fueled by greed.
What can oppose the decline of the west is not a resurrected culture but the utopia that is silently contained in the image of its decline.
Whoever now makes himself bigger, freer and more human in his own existence, is doing his part toward peace, — as yet it must be worked at in an inward direction, not until a few have it all big and ready within them can it let itself be brought into the world.
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