Lysander Spooner - Reconstruction

Reconstruction

Spooner harshly condemned the American Civil War and the Reconstruction period that followed. Though he approved of the abolition of black slavery, he criticized the North for failing to make this the purpose of their cause. Instead of fighting to abolish slavery, they fought to "preserve the union" and, according to Spooner, to bolster business interests behind that union. Spooner believed a war of this type was hypocritical and dishonest, especially on the part of Radical Republicans like Sumner who were by then claiming to be abolitionist heroes for ending slavery. Spooner also argued that the war came at a great cost to liberty and proved that the rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence no longer held true - the people could not "dissolve the political bands" that tie them to a government that "becomes destructive" of the consent of the governed because if they did so, as Spooner believed the South had attempted to do, they would be met by the bayonet to enforce their obedience to the former government.

The Union government's actions during the war caused Spooner to radicalize his views to an anarchistic view. In response, Spooner published a series of political tracts, No Treason. The most famous of these is No Treason No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority. In this lengthy essay, Spooner argued that the Constitution was a contract of government (see social contract theory) which could not logically apply to anyone other than the individuals who signed it, and was thus void. Furthermore, since the government now existing under the Constitution pursued coercive policies that were contrary to the Natural Law and to the consent of the governed, it had been demonstrated that that document could not adequately stop many abuses against liberty or prevent tyranny from taking hold. Spooner bolstered his argument by noting that the federal government, as established by a legal contract, could not legally bind all persons living in the nation since none had ever signed their names or given their consent to it - that consent had always been assumed, which fails one of the most basic burdens of proof for a valid contract in the courtroom.

Spooner widely circulated the No Treason pamphlets, which also contained a legal defense against the crime of treason itself intended for former Confederate soldiers (hence the name of the pamphlet, arguing that "no treason" had been committed in the war by the South). These excerpts were published in DeBow's Review and in some other well-known southern periodicals of the time.

George Woodcock describes Spooner's essays as an "eloquent elaboration" of Josiah Warren and the early American development of Proudhon's ideas, and associates his works with that of Stephen Pearl Andrews.