A Quote by Lysander Spooner

The right of absolute and irresponsible dominion is the right of property, and the right of property is the right of absolute, irresponsible dominion. The two are identical; the one necessarily implying the other.

Lysander Spooner

Quote Topics

Absolute Dominion Identical Implying Irresponsible Necessarily Other Property Right Two

Quote Author

Lysander Spooner
American - Philosopher
January 19, 1808 - May 14, 1887

There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe. And yet there are very few, that will give themselves the trouble to consider the original and foundation of this right.

William Blackstone

Every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact (casus non faederis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits. Without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.

Thomas Jefferson

The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.

James Madison

We're taking on Social Security as a property rights issue. We figure that every single American has an absolute property right interest in the fruits of his or her own labor. What I work for should be my property.

Malcolm Wallop

Coincident with the right of individual property under the provisions of our Government is the right of individual property. . . . When once the right of the individual to liberty and equality is admitted, there is no escape from the conclusion that he alone is entitled to the rewards of his own industry. Any other conclusion would necessarily imply either privilege or servitude.

Calvin Coolidge

It is very little to me to have the right to vote, to own property, etc., if I may not keep my body, and its uses, in my absolute right

Lucy Stone

It is a right to have a firearm to protect yourself. But it is not your right to be irresponsible. At the end of the day, it is not the gun that kills you, it is the irresponsible person that does.

Tracy Martin

Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property. In a state of slavery, the two last are wholly abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his master; and property, what he is incapable, in that state, either of acquiring, or holding, in his own use. Hence, it will appear how perfectly irreconcilable a state of slavery is to the principles of a democracy, which form the basis and foundation of our government.

St. George Tucker

An absolute and unlimited right over any object of property would be the right to commit nearly every crime.If Ihad sucha right over thestick Iamaboutto cut, I might employ it as a mace to knock down the passengers, or I might convert it into a sceptre as an emblem of royalty, or into an idol to offend the national religion.

Jeremy Bentham

It is not the right of property which is protected, but the right to property. Property, per se, has no rights; but the individual - the man - has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to his life, the right to his liberty, the right to his property The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a man his life but to deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes his life worth living. To give him his liberty but take from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty is to still leave him a slave.

George Sutherland

The right to enjoy property without unlawful deprivation, no less that the right to speak out or the right to travel is, in truth, a "personal" right.

Potter Stewart

Wild beasts and birds are by right not the property merely of the people today, but the property of the unborn generations, whose belongings we have no right to squander.

Theodore Roosevelt

Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails.

Emma Goldman

For me 'right sizing' requires that we get both the spending and revenue right. Focusing on one without the other would be irresponsible.

John Bel Edwards

No man can delegate,... any right of arbitrary dominion over a 3rd person; for that would imply a right in the 1st person, not only to make the 3rd person his slave, but also a right to dispose of him as a slave to still other persons. Any contract to do this is necessarily a criminal one...To call such a contract a “constitution” does not at all lessen its criminality, or add to its validity.

Lysander Spooner

The third absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of . . . the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.

William Blackstone