No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority

Summary
Lysander Spooner argues that constitutions and governments possess no legitimate authority over individuals unless each person has given explicit, voluntary consent. He rejects the claim that mere residence, use of public services, or participation in elections amounts to binding consent. Instead, moral and political obligation requires a clear contract between person and state; absent such an agreement, coercion by political institutions is illegitimate. Spooner insists that any claim of authority based on implied consent or majority rule collapses under logical scrutiny and moral principle.
He confronts common defenses of state power by dissecting the idea that a constitution can bind those who never personally assented to it. The Constitution, he contends, is a compact among certain signatories and cannot morally obligate their descendants, non-signatories, or those born within a territory without their explicit approval. Where governments rely on force and threats to secure obedience from the nonconsenting, their commands are not law in a moral sense but acts of aggression and usurpation.

Main Arguments
The doctrine of implied consent is the primary target. Spooner shows that silence, passive residence, or acceptance of purported benefits cannot be equated with assent, because consent must be voluntary, deliberate, and informed. He offers practical thought experiments and analogies to expose the absurdity of treating mere physical presence as contractual agreement. Voting or majority decision-making, he argues, cannot legitimately convert nonconsenting minorities into subjects; collective preference does not generate moral rights to coerce dissenters.
Spooner distinguishes between different senses of "law": positive statutes enforced by power and moral law grounded in individual rights. Governments enforce rules by force, but force does not create moral duty. Because constitutions are presented as instruments for exercising coercive power rather than mutual contracts of equal persons, they lack the moral authority their defenders claim. This conclusion leads Spooner to uphold the sovereignty of the individual and the right to refuse obedience to institutions that lack explicit consent.

Rhetorical and Philosophical Methods
Spooner combines meticulous logical reasoning with forceful moral appeals. He treats political obligations as species of contract and applies careful distinctions about consent and coercion familiar from contract theory and natural-rights thought. His method uses reductio ad absurdum to show that common rejoinders, such as the appeal to benefits received, birth within a territory, or the settling of disputes by majority, yield untenable consequences when pressed to their logical ends.
He also grounds arguments in human rights language, insisting that the initiation of force against a nonconsenting person is equivalent to theft or assault. This ethical framing transforms questions about legal legitimacy into questions about individual liberty and bodily integrity, making constitutional authority contingent on voluntary agreement rather than on historical accident or the balance of power.

Legacy and Implications
The essay supplies a radical justification for civil disobedience and resistance to state-imposed institutions when consent is absent. Spooner's polemic was especially pointed in the context of slavery and the American Civil War era, where questions about constitutional authority, secession, and compulsory service had pressing moral consequences. His insistence on individual sovereignty and stringent standards for consent influenced later libertarian and anarchist thinkers and continues to be cited in debates over the legitimacy of state power.
By reframing political obligation as a matter of voluntary contract and by rejecting majority rule as a moral source of authority, the essay challenges readers to reassess common assumptions about citizenship, duty, and the moral limits of government. It provokes enduring questions about when, if ever, coercion by political institutions can be justified and what forms of political life respect genuine individual freedom.