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Date: Wed, 20 Dec 89 11:41:01 PST
From: uunet!decwrl.dec.com!argosy!kevin (Kevin S. Van Horn)
To:
[email protected]
Subject: Spooner's _No_Treason_, section 19b
The second half of section 19 of Spooner's _No_Treason_, and the concluding
"Appendix", follow. Italics are indicated with uppercase letters.
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[Continuing the discussion of the Civil War.]
The whole affair, on the part of those who furnished the money, has been, and
now is, a deliberate scheme of robbery and murder; not merely to monopolize
the markets of the South, but also to monopolize the currency, and thus
control the industry and trade, and thus plunder and enslave the laborers, of
both North and South. And Congress and the president are today the merest
tools for these purposes. They are obliged to be, for they know that their
own power, as rulers, so-called, is at an end, the moment their credit with
the blood-money loan-mongers fails. They are like a bankrupt in the hands of
an extortioner. They dare not say nay to any demand made upon them. And to
hide at once, if possible, both their servility and crimes, they attempt to
divert public attention, by crying out that they have "Abolished Slavery!"
That they have "Saved the Country!" That they have "Preserved our Glorious
Union!" and that, in now paying the "National Debt," as they call it (as if
the people themselves, ALL OF THEM WHO ARE TO BE TAXED FOR ITS PAYMENT, had
really and voluntarily joined in contracting it), they are simply
"Maintaining the National Honor!"
By "maintaining the national honor," they mean simply that they themselves,
open robbers and murderers, assume to be the nation, and will keep faith with
those who lend them the money necessary to enable them to crush the great
body of the people under their feet; and will faithfully appropriate, from
the proceeds of their future robberies and murders, enough to pay all their
loans, principal and interest.
The pretense that the "abolition of slavery" was either a motive or
justification for the war, is a fraud of the same character with that of
"maintaining the national honor." Who, but such usurpers, robbers, and
murderers as they, ever established slavery? Or what government, except one
resting upon the sword, like the one we now have, was ever capable of
maintaining slavery? And why did these men abolish slavery? Not from any
love of liberty in general -- not as an act of justice to the black man
himself, but only "as a war measure," and because they wanted his assistance,
and that of his friends, in carrying on the war they had undertaken for
maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial
slavery, to which they have subjected the great body of the people, both
black and white. And yet these imposters now cry out that they have
abolished the chattel slavery of the black man -- although that was not the
motive of the war -- as if they thought they could thereby conceal, atone
for, or justify that other slavery which they were fighting to perpetuate,
and to render more rigorous and inexorable than it ever was before. There
was no difference of principle -- but only of degree -- between the slavery
they boast they have abolished, and the slavery they were fighting to
preserve; for all restraints upon men's natural liberty, not necessary for
the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ
>from each other only in degree.
If their object had really been to abolish slavery, or maintain liberty or
justice generally, they had only to say: All, whether white or black, who
want the protection of this government, shall have it; and all who do not
want it, will be left in peace, so long as they leave us in peace. Had they
said this, slavery would necessarily have been abolished at once; the war
would have been saved; and a thousand times nobler union than we have ever
had would have been the result. It would have been a voluntary union of free
men; such a union as will one day exist among all men, the world over, if the
several nations, so called, shall ever get rid of the usurpers, robbers, and
murderers, called governments, that now plunder, enslave, and destroy them.
Still another of the frauds of these men is, that they are now establishing,
and that the war was designed to establish, "a government of consent." The
only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is
this -- that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot. This
idea was the dominant one on which the war was carried on; and it is the
dominant one, now that we have got what is called "peace."
Their pretenses that they have "Saved the Country," and "Preserved our
Glorious Union," are frauds like all the rest of their pretenses. By them
they mean simply that they have subjugated, and maintained their power over,
an unwilling people. This they call "Saving the Country"; as if an enslaved
and subjugated people -- or as if any people kept in subjection by the sword
(as it is intended that all of us shall be hereafter) -- could be said to
have any country. This, too, they call "Preserving our Glorious Union"; as
if there could be said to be any Union, glorious or inglorious, that was not
voluntary. Or as if there could be said to be any union between masters and
slaves; between those who conquer, and those who are subjugated.
All these cries of having "abolished slavery," of having "saved the country,"
of having "preserved the union," of establishing "a government of consent,"
and of "maintaining the national honor," are all gross, shameless,
transparent cheats -- so transparent that they ought to deceive no one --
when uttered as justifications for the war, or for the government that has
suceeded the war, or for now compelling the people to pay the cost of the
war, or for compelling anybody to support a government that he does not want.
The lesson taught by all these facts is this: As long as mankind continue to
pay "national debts," so-called -- that is, so long as they are such dupes
and cowards as to pay for being cheated, plundered, enslaved, and murdered --
so long there will be enough to lend the money for those purposes; and with
that money a plenty of tools, called soldiers, can be hired to keep them in
subjection. But when they refuse any longer to pay for being thus cheated,
plundered, enslaved, and murdered, they will cease to have cheats, and
usurpers, and robbers, and murderers and blood-money loan-mongers for
masters.
APPENDIX.
Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by anybody, as
a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now binding upon
nobody; and is, moreover, such an one as no people can ever hereafter be
expected to consent to, except as they may be forced to do so at the point of
the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance what its true legal meaning, as a
contract, is. Nevertheless, the writer thinks it proper to say that, in his
opinion, the Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been
assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the
government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly,
different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He
has heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such is
the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another,
this much is certain -- that it has either authorized such a government as we
have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit
to exist.
[The end]
