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Date: Wed, 20 Dec 89 11:40:43 PST
From: uunet!decwrl.dec.com!argosy!kevin (Kevin S. Van Horn)
To:
[email protected]
Subject: Spooner's _No_Treason_, section 18a
The first part of section XVIII of Spooner's _No_Treason_ follows. Italics
are indicated with uppercase letters.
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XVIII.
The Constitution having never been signed by anybody; and there being no other
open, written, or authentic contract between any parties whatever, by virtue
of which the United States government, so called, is maintained; and it being
well known that none but male persons, of twenty-one years of age and
upwards, are allowed any voice in the government; and it being also well
known that a large number of these adult persons seldom or never vote at all;
and that all those who do vote, do so secretly (by secret ballot), and in a
way to prevent their individual votes being known, either to the world, or
even to each other; and consequently in a way to make no one openly
responsible for the acts of their agents, or representatives, -- all these
things being known, the questions arise: WHO compose the real governing
power in the country? Who are the men, THE RESPONSIBLE MEN, who rob us of
our property? Restrain us of our liberty? Subject us to their arbitrary
dominion? And devastate our hooms, and shoot us down by the hundreds of
thousands, if we resist? How shall we find these men? How shall we know
them from others? How shall we defend ourselves and our property against
them? Who, of our neighbors, are members of this secret band of robbers and
murderers? How can we know which are THEIR houses, that we may burn or
demolish them? Which THEIR property, that we may destroy it? Which their
persons, that we may kill them, and rid the world and ourselves of such
tyrants and monsters?
These are questions that must be answered, before men can be free; before they
can protect themselves against this secret band of robbers and murderers, who
now plunder, enslave, and destroy them.
The answer to these questions is, that only those who have the will and power
to shoot down their fellow men, are the real rulers in this, as in all other
(so-called) civilized countries; for by no others will civilized men be
robbed, or enslaved.
Among savages, mere physical strength, on the part of one man, may enable him
to rob, enslave, or kill another man. Among barbarians, mere physical
strength, on the part of a body of men, disciplined, and acting in concert,
though with very little money or other wealth, may, under some circumstances,
enable them to rob, enslave, or kill another body of men, as numerous, or
perhaps even more numerous, than themselves. And among both savages and
barbarians, mere want may sometimes compel one man to sell himself as a slave
to another. But with (so-called) civilized peoples, among whom knowledge,
wealth, and the means of acting in concert, have becom diffusede; and who have
invented such weapons and other means of defense as to render mere physical
strength of less importance; and by whom soldiers in any requisite number, and
other instrumentalities of war in any requisite amount, can always be had for
money, the question of war, and consequently the question of power, is little
else than a mere question of money. As a necessary consequence, those who
stand ready to furnish this money, are the real rulers. It is so in Europe,
and it is so in this country.
In Europe, the nominal rulers, the emperors and kings and parliaments, are
anything but the real rulers of their respective countries. They are little
or nothing else than mere tools, employed by the wealthy to rob, enslave, and
(if need be) murder those who have less wealth, or none at all.
The Rosthchilds, and that class of money-lenders of whom they are the
representatives and agents -- men who never think of lending a shilling to
their next-door neighbors, for purposes of honest industry, unless upon the
most ample security, and at the highest rate of interest -- stand ready, at
all times, to lend money in unlimited amounts to those robbers and murderers,
who call themselves governments, to be expended in shooting down those who do
not submit quietly to being robbed and enslaved.
They lend their money in this manner, knowing that it is to be expended in
murdering their fellow men, for simply seeking their liberty and their rights;
knowing also that neither the interest nor the principal will ever be paid,
except as it will be extorted under terror of the repetition of such murders
as those for which the money lent is to be expended.
These money-lenders, the Rosthchilds, for example, say to themselves: If we
lend a hundred millions sterling to the queen and parliament of England, it
will enable them to murder twenty, fifty, or a hundred thousand people in
England, Ireland, or India; and the terror inspired by such wholesale
slaughter, will enable them to keep the whole people of those countries in
subjection for twenty, or perhaps fifty, years to come; to control all their
trade and industry; and to extort from them large amounts of money, under the
name of taxes; and from the wealth thus extorted from them, they (the queen
and parliament) can afford to pay us a higher rate of interest for our money
than we can get in any other way. Or, if we lend this sum to the emperor of
Austria, it will enable him to murder so many of his people as to strike
terror into the rest, and thus enable him to keep them in subjection, and
extort money from them, for twenty or fifty years to come. And they say the
same in regard to the emperor of Russia, the king of Prussia, the emperor of
France, or any other ruler, so called, who, in their judgment, will be able,
by murdering a reasonable portion of his people, to keep the rest in
subjection, and extort money from them, for a long time to come, to pay the
interest and the principal of the money lent him.
And why are these men so ready to lend money for murdering their fellow men?
Soley for this reason, viz., that such loans are considered better investments
than loans for purposes of honest industry. They pay higher rates of
interest; and it is less trouble to look after them. This is the whole
matter.
[To be continued.]
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Kevin S. Van Horn | "...no government, so called, can reasonably be
[email protected] | trusted for a moment, ... any longer than it
| depends wholly upon voluntary support."
| -- Lysander Spooner
