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.
Lysander SpoonerRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Majority rule can lead to oppression of the minority, resulting in an endless struggle for power.
Lysander Spooner's quote critiques the concept of majority rule by highlighting its potential to create a dynamic where one group dominates another. He argues that this conflict between the 'masters' and the 'slaves' is an intrinsic aspect of any government founded on such principles, suggesting that as long as there are individuals who resist subjugation, the struggle for equality and justice will persist without resolution.
Themes
MajorityMinorityOppressionGovernmentPowerStruggle
In practice
Example use cases
In a political debate about voting rights, one might reference this quote to argue against violating minority rights.
More from Lysander Spooner
All quotes →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.
Lysander SpoonerRead
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.
Lysander SpoonerRead
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.
Lysander SpoonerRead
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.
Lysander SpoonerRead
There is not, in the Constitution, a syllable that implies that persons, born within the territorial limits of the United States, have allegiance imposed upon them on account of their birth in the country, or that they will be judged by any different rule, on the subject of treason, than persons of foreign birth.
Lysander SpoonerRead
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