A Letter to Grover Cleveland by Lysander Spooner

Page 1 of 95

A LETTER

GROVER CLEVELAND,

HIS FALSE INAUGURAL ADDRESS, THE USURPATIONS AND CRIMES OF LAWMAKERS AND JUDGES, AND THE CONSEQUENT POVERTY, IGNORANCE, AND SERVITUDE OF THE PEOPLE.

BY LYSANDER SPOONER.

BOSTON: BENJ. R. TUCKER, PUBLISHER. 1886.

The author reserves his copyright in this letter. First pamphlet edition published in July, 1886.[1]

[1] Under a somewhat different title, to wit, "_A Letter to Grover Cleveland, on his False, Absurd, If-contradictory, and Ridiculous Inaugural Address_," this letter was first published, in instalments, "LIBERTY" (a paper published in Boston); the instalments commencing June 20, 1885, and continuing to May 22, 1886: notice being given, in each paper, of the reservation of copyright.

A LETTER TO GROVER CLEVELAND.

SECTION I.

_To Grover Cleveland_:

SIR,--Your inaugural address is probably as honest, sensible, and consistent a one as that of any president within the last fifty years, or, perhaps, as any since the foundation of the government. If, therefore, it is false, absurd, self-contradictory, and ridiculous, it is not (as I think) because you are personally less honest, sensible, or consistent than your predecessors, but because the government itself--according to your own description of it, and according to the practical administration of it for nearly a hundred years--is an utterly and palpably false, absurd, and criminal one. Such praises as you bestow upon it are, therefore, necessarily false, absurd, and ridiculous.

Thus you describe it as "a government pledged to do equal and exact justice to all men."

Did you stop to think what that means? Evidently you did not; for nearly, or quite, all the rest of your address is in direct contradiction to it.

Let me then remind you that justice is an immutable, natural principle; and not anything that can be made, unmade, or altered by any human power.

It is also a subject of science, and is to be learned, like mathematics, or any other science. It does not derive its authority from the commands, will, pleasure, or discretion of any possible combination of men, whether calling themselves a government, or by any other name.

It is also, at all times, and in all places, the supreme law. And being everywhere and always the supreme law, it is necessarily everywhere and always the only law.

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