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{
"title": "No Treason - The Constitution of No Authority",
"authors": ["Lysander Spooner"],
"publishdate": "1869-01-19",
"tags": ["Law"]
}
The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no
authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and
man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between
persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract
between persons living eighty years ago . 1 And it can be supposed to
have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to
years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and
obligatory contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a
small portion even of the people then exist¬ ing were consulted on the
subject, or asked, or permitted to express either their consent or
ndissent in any formal manner. Those persons, if any, who did give
their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead
forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the Constitution, so far as
it t oas their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or
right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only
plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind
their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them. That is
to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement between any
body but “the people” then existing; nor does it, either expressly or
impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part, to
bind anybody but themselves. Let us see. Its language is:
We, the people of the United States (that is, the people then existing
in the United States), in order to form a more perfect union, insure
domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves ana
our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitu¬ tion for the
United States of America.
It is plain, in the first place, that this language, as an agreement,
purports to be only what it at most really was, viz., a contract
between the people then existing; and, of necessity, binding, as a
contract, only upon those then existing. In the second place, the
language neither expresses nor implies that they had any intention or
desire, nor that they imagined they had any right or power, to bind
their “posterity” to five under it. It does not say that their
“posterity” will, shall, or must live under it. It only says, in
effect, that their hopes and motives in adopting it were that it might
prove useful to their posterity, as well as to themselves, by
promoting their imion, safety, tranquility, liberty, etc.
Suppose an agreement were entered into, in this form:
We, the people of Boston, agree to maintain a fort on Governor’s
Island, to protect ourselves and our posterity against invasion.
This agreement, as an agreement, would clearly bind nobody but the
people then existing. Secondly, it would assert no right, power, or
disposition, on their part, to compel^their “posterity” to maintain
such a fort. It would only indicate that the supposed wel¬ fare of
their posterity was one of the motives that induced the original
parties to enter into the agreement.
When a man says he is building a house for himself and his posterity,
he does not mean to be understood as saying that he has any thought of
binding them, nor is it to be inferred that he is so foolish as to
imagine that he has any right or power to bind them, to live in it. So
far as they are concerned, he only means to be understood as saying
that his hopes and motives, in building it, are that they, or at least
some of them, may find it for their happiness to live in it.
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