Free Political Institutions Their Nature, Essence, and Maintenance An Abridgment and Rearrangement of Lysander Spooner's "Trial by jury" EDITED BY VICTOR YARROS LONDON C. W. DANIEL, LTD. 3, Amen Corner, E.C. 1912 CHAPTER 1: LEGITIMATE GOVERNMENT AND MAJORITY RULE The theory of free government is that it is formed by the voluntary contract of the people individually with each other. This is the theory (although it is not, as it ought to be, the fact) in all the governments in the United States, as also in the government of England. The theory assumes that each man who is a party to the government, and contributes to its support, has individually and freely consented to it. Otherwise the government would have no right to tax him for its support, for taxation without consent is robbery. This theory, then, necessarily supposes that this government...
I The dying sun grows pale with haze and fog. Slowly the dark-gray line undulates across the shop, and draws its sinuous length along the gloaming yard. The shadowy waves cleave the thickening mist, vibrate ghostlike, and are swallowed in the yawning blackness of the cell-house. "Aleck, Aleck!" I hear an excited whisper behind me, "quick, plant it. The screw's goin' t' frisk me." Something small and hard is thrust into my coat pocket. The guard in front stops short, suspiciously scanning the passing men. "Break ranks!" The overseer approaches me. "You are wanted in the office, Berk." The Warden, blear-eyed and sallow, frowns as I am led in. "What have you got on you?" he demands, abruptly. "I don't understand you." "Yes, you do. Have you money on you?" "I have not." "Who sends clandestine mail for you?" "What mail?" "The letter published in the Anarchist sheet in...