Lysander Spooner facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lysander Spooner
Born	(1808-01-19)January 19, 1808 Athol, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	May 14, 1887(1887-05-14) (aged 79) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Entrepreneur and writer
Nationality	American
Subject	Political philosophy
Notable works	The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845) No Treason (1867)
Philosophy career
Era	19th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Individualist anarchism Mutualism
Main interests	Natural law
Influences Andrews, Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Jefferson, Paine, Twain, Thoreau, Greene, Marx, Freud, Darwin, Nietzsche, Proudhon, Tucker, Warren
Influenced Kroptkin, Goldman, Barnett, Bookchin, Rothbard

Lysander Spooner (born January 19, 1808 – died May 14, 1887) was an American thinker and writer. He believed strongly in individual freedom and was against government control. He was known for fighting against slavery and for challenging the government's mail service.

Spooner was a big supporter of workers' rights. He believed that people should be free to make their own choices without too much government interference. His ideas have influenced different groups, including those who believe in less government and those who support workers' rights. He wrote important books like The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, which argued that slavery was against the law, and No Treason, which questioned the government's power. He also started his own mail company to compete with the official Post Office.

About Lysander Spooner

His Early Life

Lysander Spooner was born on a farm in Athol, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1808. He was the second of nine children. His family had been in America since 1637. His father was a deist, meaning he believed in God but not in organized religion.

His Legal Career

Spooner's journey to becoming a lawyer was unusual. He studied law with famous lawyers and politicians, but he never went to college. At that time, Massachusetts law said college graduates needed to study for three years to become a lawyer, while others needed five years.

Spooner thought this rule was unfair. He believed it hurt poor people and gave an unfair advantage to the rich. So, after only three years, he opened his own law practice in Worcester, Massachusetts, challenging the law. He argued that no one should be stopped from working just because they didn't have a specific license. Thanks to his efforts, the law was changed in 1836. Spooner believed in "natural law," which means that certain rights are basic and should not be taken away by human-made laws.

After some struggles in his law career and a failed business in Ohio, Spooner went back to his family farm in 1840.

Challenging the Mail Service

Spooner believed in people being able to run their own businesses without government rules. In 1844, he started the American Letter Mail Company. This company competed with the U.S. Post Office, which had very high prices.

Spooner's company had offices in cities like Baltimore and New York. People could buy stamps from his company and put them on their letters. Then, Spooner's agents would carry the letters by train and steamboat, delivering them to people's homes. This was a direct challenge to the government's control over mail.

Spooner even wrote a pamphlet arguing that the government's monopoly on mail was unconstitutional. His company was successful for a while, but the government eventually took legal action against him. A new law in 1851 made it impossible for him to continue. However, Spooner's challenge had a big impact: the Post Office lowered its prices from 5 cents to 3 cents, which lasted for many years.

Fighting Against Slavery

Spooner became very well-known for his work in the movement to end slavery. In 1845, he published his important book, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery. This book caused a big discussion among abolitionists (people who wanted to end slavery).

Some abolitionists, like William Lloyd Garrison, believed that the U.S. Constitution actually supported slavery. But Spooner argued that the Constitution, when read carefully, did not allow slavery. He said that even if the people who wrote the Constitution might have allowed slavery, the actual words of the document did not. He used legal arguments to show that several parts of the Constitution actually made slavery illegal.

Spooner's ideas were used by other abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, who changed his mind about the Constitution after reading Spooner's arguments.

From 1845 until the start of the Civil War, Spooner actively worked against slavery. He wrote more pamphlets about how juries could refuse to convict escaped slaves. He even offered his legal help to runaway slaves for free. In the late 1850s, he suggested a "Plan for the Abolition of Slavery" that involved enslaved people and non-slaveholding Southerners fighting for their freedom. He also worked with John Brown to try and free Brown after his famous raid at Harpers Ferry.

Even though he supported fighting to end slavery, Spooner was against the American Civil War. He believed that President Lincoln's main goal was to keep the country together by force, not just to end slavery. He thought the war was wrong because it forced Southern states to stay in the Union. He argued that if the North accepted slavery was allowed by the Constitution, then the South had a right to leave to continue it. This idea was not popular in either the North or the South during the war.

Later Years and Legacy

After the Civil War, Spooner continued to write. He wrote about "Natural Law" and a book called Trial by Jury. In Trial by Jury, he argued that a jury should not only decide if someone broke a law, but also if the law itself is fair. If a jury thought a law was unfair, they could refuse to convict someone.

Spooner also wrote for an anarchist newspaper called Liberty. He believed that most wealth was made by taking from others' hard work. He died on May 14, 1887, in Boston, at the age of 79. He never married or had children.

Spooner's Ideas

Lysander Spooner was an individualist anarchist. This means he believed that each person should have the most freedom possible, and that government should have very little power. He thought that people should be able to own property and make their own choices without the government telling them what to do.

Spooner believed that people should be self-employed. He thought that if people worked for themselves, they would get all the benefits of their hard work. He argued that government rules made it hard for people to start their own businesses. For example, he believed that government rules about money made it hard for people to borrow money to start businesses. This forced many people to work for others for low wages.

Some people see Spooner as a supporter of free markets, while others see him as someone who wanted to change the capitalist system to benefit workers more. He was a member of the First International, a group that included many socialists.

Spooner in Stories

• The science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein mentioned Spooner in some of his books. Some of Heinlein's fictional worlds are even based on Spooner's ideas.
• In the science fiction novel Scam Artists of the Galaxy, one planet called Nirvana is based on Spooner's ideas. This makes it impossible for the "scam artists" to succeed there.

His Influence

Spooner's ideas have had a lasting impact on many different topics. He is best remembered for his fight against slavery and his challenge to the Post Office. His actions led to lower mail prices for everyone.

His writings have influenced many thinkers, especially those who believe in individual liberty. His book The Unconstitutionality of Slavery was even mentioned in a 2008 Supreme Court case about the right to own guns. Justice Antonin Scalia quoted Spooner, saying that the right to have weapons was important for those who wanted to fight against slavery.

In Spanish: Lysander Spooner para niños

Images for kids

• 

  Spooner's grave in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.