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If you want to shake up a friend—or even yourself—I know just the person to do it. If Lysander Spooner cannot inspire a reexamination of everything you learned in high school, then nobody can.

It has been nearly twenty years since I read Spooner in high school, and my life has not been the same since. After wrestling with Spooner's tightly reasoned arguments against the state in No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority you'll never look at the government the same way again. I guarantee it. (It's also guaranteed to get you in trouble with your high school principal, as it did me.)

A Fascinating Figure

Lawyer, abolitionist, radical, friend of liberty: that was Lysander Spooner, one of the most fascinating figures to emerge from American history. A ferocious opponent of slavery, he supported the right of secession. An ardent enemy of statist legislation, he was a brilliant jurist who put his faith in the law. An eloquent foe of prohibition of alcohol or drugs, he offered a moral defense of liberty.

Spooner inspired both John Brown's anti-slavery raid on Harper's Ferry and the "Spooner Acts" passed by the U.S. Congress to put his private post office out of business and cement the state's postal monopoly. But try to find his name in a high school or college history textbook. Uh-uh—too radical.

Until now, Spooner was accessible only through a few obscure sources, including the extremely expensive six volume facsimile edition of his Collected Works. Fortunately, that has now changed. The independent scholar George H. Smith has pulled the very best of Spooner into a readable anthology of unabridged essays, including the wonderful "Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty," a real gem that did not appear in the Collected Works. (This essay is one of the most eloquent defenses of freedom of choice I have ever read, offering a smashing refutation of every argument for prohibition of alcohol, drugs, smoking, or other non-coercive "vices.") This edition is newly typeset and attractively printed.

No Treason

In addition to "Vices Are Not Crimes," Smith has included Spooner's short essay on "Natural Law" (still, to my mind, one of the very best things written on the subject, in which he clearly distinguishes between moral duties and legal—or enforceable—duties), the essay "Trial by Jury," which argues cogently for the right of "jury nullification" of unjust statutes, the "Letter to Thomas Bayard: Challenging the Opinion that is at least Possible to be a Legislator...and yet be an Honest Man," and his breathtakingly radical "No Treason," undoubtedly the most subversive work ever written. Any one of these essays would justify the price of the book.

Spooner was a master of one of the great forms of political discourse: the pamphlet. This form of communication—encompassing all of the elements of classical rhetoric in a relatively short space—was immensely important to the growth of classical liberal and libertarian thought. Think of Tom Paine, Frederic Bastiat, Richard Cobden, Lysander Spooner, Rose Wilder Lane, Ayn Rand. Many are acquainted with Lane or Rand, Cobden or Bastiat, but far too few know Spooner, certainly the most colorful and interesting of the group.

One nice thing about Spooner's style is that he doesn't make you wade through a gigantic treatise; each essay is concise, short, and to the point. This is a perfect companion for a trip to the beach, but don't put it by the bedstand, because I promise you that it won't put you to sleep. It's hard to describe what it's like to read Lysander Spooner. Think of F.A. Hayek on speed. Or Ayn Rand with a law degree. Or . . . well, there's really no comparison. Spooner is in a class of his own.

Recharge Your Batteries

The Lysander Spooner Reader includes a quite useful introduction by Smith, in many ways a contemporary equivalent of Spooner himself, and the eulogy for Spooner by the American individualist anarchist publisher Benjamin Tucker, "Our Nestor Taken From Us." Both are worth reading for their insights into a giant of American pro-freedom political thought.

I have a bit of advice: Don't buy The Lysander Spooner Reader just to inform yourself about an important strand of American political thought (although it will do that). Buy it to recharge your batteries, to rediscover why you love freedom, or to introduce yourself to the most tightly reasoned logical defense of liberty. I recommend this book most highly.

Tom G. Palmer is director of special projects at the Cato Institute and an H.B. Earhart Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford University

"Somewhere, sometime a person will open this book not knowing what to expect, but curious about a man with the curious name of Lysander Spooner. I envy that reader, for that was me nearly twenty-five years ago when I encountered No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Here were ideas radical yet commonsensical, subversive yet quintessentially American. Spooner challenged and excited me... Such experiences are rare because truly original thinkers are rare, and you can only discover them once."
— George H. Smith, from the introduction