An Essay On The Trial By Jury - Lysander Spooner (little red riding hood read aloud .TXT) 📗
- Author: Lysander Spooner
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Of Their Rights Against Wrong-Doers. In its Voluntary Character
It Is Precisely Similar To An Association For Mutual Protection
Against Fire Or Shipwreck. Before A Man Will Join An Association
For These Latter Purposes, And Pay The Premium For Being insured,
He Will, If He Be A Man Of Sense, Look At The Articles Of The
Association; See What The Company Promises To Do; What It Is
Likely To Do; And What Are The Rates Of Insurance. If He Be
Satisfied on All These Points, He Will Become A Member, Pay His
Premium For A Year, And Then Hold The Company To Its Contract. If
The Conduct Of The Company Prove Unsatisfactory, He Will Let His
Policy Expire At The End Of The Year For Which He Has Paid; Will
Decline To Pay Any Further Premiums, And Either Seek Insurance
Elsewhere, Or Take His Own Risk Without Any Insurance. And As Men
Act In the Insurance Of Their Ships And Dwellings, They Would Act
In The Insurance Of Their Properties, Liberties And Lives, In the
Political Association, Or Government.
The Political Insurance Company, Or Government, Have No More
Right, In nature Or Reason, To Assume A Man'S Consent To Be
Protected by Them, And To Be Taxed for That Protection, When He
Has Given No Actual Consent, Than A Fire Or Marine Insurance
Company Have To Assume A Man'S Consent To Be Protected by Them,
And To Pay The Premium, When His Actual Consent Has Never Been
Given. To Take A Man'S Property Without His Consent Is Robbery;
And To Assume His Consent, Where No Actual Consent Is Given,
Makes The Taking none The Less Robbery. If It Did, The Highwayman
Has The Same Right To Assume A Man'S Consent To Part With His
Purse, That Any Other Man, Or Body Of Men, Can Have. And His
Assumption Would Afford As Much Moral Justification For His
Robbery As Does A Like Assumption, On The Part Of The Government,
For Taking a Man'S Property Without His Consent. The Government'S
Pretence Of Protecting him, As An Equivalent For The Taxation,
Affords No Justification. It Is For Himself To Decide Whether He
Desires Such Protection As The Government Offers Him. If He Do
Not Desire It, Or Do Not Bargain For It, The Government Has No
More Right Than Any Other Insurance Company To Impose It Upon
Him, Or Make Him Pay For It. Trial By The Country, And No
Taxation Without Consent, Were The Two Pillars Of English
Liberty, (When England Had Any Liberty,) And The First Principles
Of The Common Law. They Mutually Sustain Each Other; And
Neither Can Stand Without The Other. Without Both, No People Have Any
Guaranty For Their Freedom; With Both, No People Can Be Otherwise
Than Free. [1]
[1] Trial By The Country, And No Taxation Without Consent,
Mutually Sustain Each Other, And Can Be Sustained only By Each
Other, For These Reasons: 1. Juries Would Refuse To Enforce A Tax
Against A Man Who Had Never Agreed to Pay It. They Would Also
Protect Men In forcibly Resisting the Collection Of Taxes To
Which They Had Never Consented. Otherwise The Jurors Would
Appendix (Taxation) Pg 214Authorize The Government To Tax Themselves Without Their Consent,
A Thing which No Jury Would Be Likely To Do. In these Two Ways,
Then, Trial By The Country Would Sustain The Principle Of No
Taxation Without Consent. 2. On The Other Hand, The Principle Of
No Taxation Without Consent Would Sustain The Trial By The
Country, Because Men In general Would Not Consent To Be Taxed for
The Support Of A Government Under Which Trial By The Country Was
Not Secured. Thus These Two Principles Mutually Sustain Each
Other.
But, If Either Of These Principles Were Broken Down, The Other
Would Fall With It, And For These Reasons:If Trial By The Country
Were Broken Down, The Principle Of No Taxation Without Consent
Would Fall With It, Because The Government Would Then Be Able
Totax The People Without Their Consent, Inasmuch As The Legal
Tribunals Would Be Mere Tools Of The Government, And Would
Enforce Such Taxation, And Punish Men For Resisting such
Taxation, As The Government Ordered.
On The Other Hand, If The Principle Of No Taxation Without
Consent Were Broken Down, Trial By The Country Would Fall With
It, Because The Government, If It Could Tax People Without Their
Consent, Would, Of Course, Take Enough Of Their Money To Enable
It To Employ All The Force Necessary For Sustaining its Own
Tribunals, (In The Place Of Juries,) And Carrying their Decrees
Into Execution.
By What Force, Fraud, And Conspiracy, On The Part Of Kings,
Nobles, And "A Few Wealthy Freeholders," These Pillars Have Been
Prostrated in england, It Is Desired to Show More Fully In the
Next Volume, If It Should Be Necessary.
Imprint
Publication Date: 05-12-2014
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