Book Review of
No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority
By Lysander Spooner [1808 – 1887]
About the Book
This book is a pamphlet-size compilation of three essays written in 1867.
The essays are titled #1, #2: "The Constitution", and #6: "The Constitution of No Authority".
No essays between #2 and #6 were ever published under the authorship of Lysander Spooner.
Along with his other writings, it can be downloaded free at www.lysanderspooner.org.
This book is recommendable due to the rigorous logic of its succinct argumentation. Every citizen who would read particularly the last essay will judge in a clearer light the nature of the Constitution. Spooner had a sense of revulsion at how American politics had ensued in the early-to-mid 19th century. It was thus that No Treason was written in the hope of moderating the Constitution to ensure that slavery and bloody recriminations for secession would never again occur.
Spooner is also known for competing with the Post Office with his American Letter Mail Company which was closed after legal problems with the federal government. According to the "Journal of Libertarian Studies" Spooner's challenge to the Post Office monopoly had a lasting influence of significantly reducing postal rates.
Spooner's writings were a major influence on Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard, co-founder of the Mises Institute, and law professor and legal theorist Randy Barnett, Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, and Director Georgetown Center for the Constitution. His writings were often reprinted in early libertarian journals such as the "Rampart Journal" and "Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought".
In 2010, the Libertarian, Agorist, Voluntaryist and Anarch Association of Authors and Publishers (LAVA) created the Lysander Spooner Award for Book of the Year which has been awarded annually since 2011. The LAVA Awards are held annually to honor excellence in books relating to the principles of liberty, with the Lysander Spooner Award being the grand prize.
The following is from the book's Introductory: "The question of treason is distinct from that of slavery; and is the same that it would have been, if free States, instead of slave States, had seceded. 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. 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. No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it be really established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle — but only in degree — between political and chattel slavery."
Endorsements
This book's popularity is demonstrated in the fact that its Amazon rank is #79 in the "Constitutions" category and #227 in "Political Philosophy". Customer Reviews rate it 4.8 out of 5 stars from 200 ratings.
Audio version available at Podomatic.