Lysander Spooner: Nineteenth-Century America's Last Natural Rights Theorist

Summary

Introduction

The main purpose of this essay is to articulate the ideas of the last powerful advocate of natural rights in nineteenth century America. That last powerful advocate was the Massachusetts born radical libertarian Lysander Spooner (1808–1887). Spooner produced an impressive body of anti-slavery and anti-statist writings that included The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845 and 1846), A Defense Fugitive Slaves (1850), An Essay on Trial by Jury (1852) The Law of Intellectual Property (1855), No Treason No. 6: The Constitution of No Authority (1870), “Vices are not Crimes” (1875), Natural Law (1882), and A Letter to Grover Cleveland (1886). Robert Nozick strongly commended the study of Spooner and his ideological colleague, the author and publisher Benjamin Tucker, saying that “It cannot be overemphasized how lively, stimulating, and interesting are the writings and arguments of Spooner and Tucker…” Unfortunately, despite its force and conceptual rigor, there has been little scholarly examination of Spooner's thought. This is especially the case with regard to Spooner's account of natural rights. This essay seeks to fill that scholarly gap by examining Spooner's case for affirming strongly individualistic natural rights and by arguing that there is considerably more to Spooner's case for the authority of such rights than may first meet the eye. I maintain that Spooner's doctrine of rights is strikingly Lockean.