| | 1 | Author: | Spooner, Lysander | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority  | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no
authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and
man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between
persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract
between persons living eighty years ago. [This essay was written in
1869.] And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between
persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be
competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts. Furthermore,
we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people
then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to
express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those
persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now.
Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And
The constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They
had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children.
It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they
Could bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them.
That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement
between any body but "the people" THEN existing; nor does it, either
expressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their
part, to bind anybody but themselves. Let us see. Its language is:
We, the people of the United States (that is, the people then existing
in the United States), in order to form a more perfect union, insure
domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
And our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
United States of America. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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