Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Lysander Spooner: On State agency...

"They [the elected government officials] are neither our servants, agents, attorneys, nor representatives ... [for] we do not make ourselves responsible for their acts. If a man is my servant, agent, or attorney, I necessarily make myself responsible for all his acts done within the limits of the power I have intrusted to him. If I have intrusted him, as my agent, with either absolute power, or any power at all, over the persons or properties of other men than myself, I thereby necessarily make myself responsible to those other persons for any injuries he may do them, so long as he acts within the limits of the power I have granted him. But no individual who may be injured in his person or property, by acts of Congress, can come to the individual electors, and hold them responsible for these acts of their so-called agents or representatives. This fact proves that these pretended agents of the people, of everybody, are really the agents of nobody."
~Lysander Spooner
Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority, James J. Martin ed. (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Ralph Myles, 1973), p. 29.

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