A LETTER
to
GROVER CLEVELAND,
on
His False Inaugural Address, The Usurpations and
Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and The
Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and
Servitude of the People.
by
LYSANDER SPOONER.
BOSTON:
BENJ. R. TUCKER, PUBLISHER.
1886.
The author reserves his copyright in this letter.
First pamphlet edition published in July, 1886.[1]
[1] Under a somewhat different title, to wit, "A Letter to Grover Cleveland, on his False, Absurd,If-contradictory, and Ridiculous Inaugural Address," this letter was first published, in instalments,"Liberty" (a paper published in Boston); the instalments commencing June 20, 1885, and continuingto May 22, 1886: notice being given, in each paper, of the reservation of copyright.
To Grover Cleveland:
Sir,—Your inaugural address is probably as honest, sensible, and consistent aone as that of any president within the last fifty years, or, perhaps, as any since thefoundation of the government. If, therefore, it is false, absurd, self-contradictory,and ridiculous, it is not (as I think) because you are personally less honest, sensible,or consistent than your predecessors, but because the government itself—accordingto your own description of it, and according to the practical administration of it fornearly a hundred years—is an utterly and palpably false, absurd, and criminal one.Such praises as you bestow upon it are, therefore, necessarily false, absurd, andridiculous.
Thus you describe it as "a government pledged to do equal and exact justice toall men."
Did you stop to think what that means? Evidently you did not; for nearly, orquite, all the rest of your address is in direct contradiction to it.
Let me then remind you that justice is an immutable, natural principle; and notanything that can be made, unmade, or altered by any human power.
It is also a subject of science, and is to be learned, like mathematics, or any otherscience. It does not derive its authority from the commands, will, pleasure, ordiscretion of any possible combination of men, whether calling themselves a government,or by any other name.
It is also, at all times, and in all places, the supreme law. And being everywhereand always the supreme law, it is necessarily everywhere and always the only law.
Lawmakers, as they call themselves, can add nothing to it, nor take anythingfrom it. Therefore all their laws, as they call them,—that is, all the laws of theirown making,—have no color of authority or obligation. It is a falsehood to callthem laws; for there is nothing in them that either creates men's duties or rights,or enlightens them as to their duties or rights. There is consequently nothingbinding or obligatory about them. And nobody is bound to take the least notice[Pg 4]of them, unless it be to trample them under foot, as usurpations. If they commandmen to do justice, they add nothing to men's obligation to do it, or to any man'sright to enforce it. They are therefore mere idle wind, such as would be commandsto consider the day as day, an