It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men's property, which they had not before, as individuals.
Lysander SpoonerThe number who actually consented to the Constitution of the United States, at the first, was very small. Considered as the act of the whole people, the adoption of the Constitution was the merest farce and imposture, binding upon nobody.
Lysander SpoonerNow a slave is not 'held' by any legal contract, obligation, duty, or authority, which the laws will enforce. He is 'held' only by brute force. One person beats another until the latter will obey him, work for him, if he require it, or do nothing if he require it.
Lysander SpoonerNo 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 โconstitutionโ does not at all lessen its criminality, or add to its validity.
Lysander Spooner