Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cures

Chapter 6 : The Legal Nature of Debt, Continued
Lysander Spooner, Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cures. Boston: Bela Marsh, No. 25 Cornhill. 1846. CHAPTER VI. THE LEGAL NATURE OF DEBT. - (CONTINUED.) SOME persons may not have been convinced, by the arguments already offered, that debt is but a bailment. The doctrine is also too important to be dismissed without offering all the arguments that go to sustain it. Some further explanations of collateral questions are also necessary. These additional arguments and explanations have been reserved for a second chapter, for the reason that, to many minds, I apprehend, they will be unnecessary, and therefore tedious; and for the further reason that the matter will be simplified by presenting them separately from those in the preceding chapter. There remain two lines of argument, which go to prove the same point, to wit, that debt is but a bailment-and which, for the sake of distinctness, will be presented separately. It will be impossi... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 5 : The Legal Nature of Debt
Lysander Spooner, Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cures. Boston: Bela Marsh, No. 25 Cornhill. 1846. CHAPTER V. THE LEGAL NATURE OF DEBT. The nature of debt, amid the extent of its moral and legal obligation, have been very much misunderstood; and from this misunderstanding, and the erroneous judicial decisions consequent thereon, have resulted perpetual ruin to a large proportion of debtors: utter confusion, and the violation of all natural law in regard to the rights of creditors, as against each other, in the property of their debtors; and the destruction, in a great measure, of all credit, that is sound in itself, and safe and beneficial to both debtor and creditor. This chapter and the succeeding one will attempt to prove that a debt-such as is evidenced by a promissory note, for instance-has no legal obligation, and generally no moral cite, beyond the means of the debtor to pay at the time the debt becomes due. (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 4 : Social, Moral, Intellectual, and Political Results from the Preceding Propositions
Lysander Spooner, Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cures. Boston: Bela Marsh, No. 25 Cornhill. 1846. CHAPTER IV. SOCIAL, MORAL, INTELLECTUAL, AND POLITICAL RESULTS FROM THE PRECEDING PROPOSITIONS. Social Results. To appreciate, in some measure, the important social influences of the preceding propositions, it is only necessary to consider that that portion of human virtue, which consists in one's doing good to others than himself, depends almost entirely upon sympathy-upon one's susceptibility of being affected by the feelings of others; and that this sympathy, or susceptibility, is mostly, if not wholly, the result of his having had, in some measure, a similar experience with others, or of his having had social relations with them. Thus those who have been sick, sympathize with the sick; the sorrowful sympathize with the sorrowful; the merry with the merry; the rich sympathize with the rich; the poor with the poor; the learned with... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 3 : Economical Results from the Preceding Propositions
Lysander Spooner, Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cures. Boston: Bela Marsh, No. 25 Cornhill. 1846. CHAPTER 3: ECONOMICAL RESULTS FROM THE PRECEDING PROPOSITIONS The last four of the preceding propositions assert the following principles, to wit: 1. The right of the parties to contracts to make their own bargains in regard to the rate of interest. 2. The right of free competition in the business of banking. 3. That the legal obligation of a debt, with specific exceptions, is extinguished by the debtor's making payment to the extent of his means, when the debt becomes due. 4. That the several creditors of the same debtor hold successive liens upon his property, for the full amount of their debts, in the order in which their debts respectively were contracted. It will hereafter be shown that these several principles are legal ones, founded in natural and constitutional law, that is bindi... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Chapter 2 : Economical Propositions
Lysander Spooner, Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cures. Boston: Bela Marsh, No. 25 Cornhill. 1846. CHAPTER 2: ECONOMICAL PROPOSITIONS Proposition 1. Every man-so far as, consistently with the principles of natural law, he can accomplish it-should be allowed to have the fruits, and all the fruits of his own labor. That the principle of allowing each man to have, (so far as it is consistent with the principles of natural law that he can have,) all the fruits of his own labor, would conduce to a more just and equal distribution of wealth than' now exists, is a proposition too self-evident almost to need illustration. It is an obvious principle of natural justice, that each man should have the fruits of his own labor; and all arbitrary enactments by governments, interfering with this result, are nothing better than robbery. It is also an obvious fact, that the property produced by society, is now distributed in very un... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Illegal Causes of Poverty
Lysander Spooner, Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cures. Boston: Bela Marsh, No. 25 Cornhill. 1846. CHAPTER 1: ILLEGAL CAUSES OF POVERTY The existing poverty would be rapidly removed, and future poverty almost entirely prevented, a more equal distribution of property than now exists accomplished, and the aggregate wealth of society greatly increased, if the principles of natural law, and of our national and state constitutions generally, were adhered to by the judiciary in their decisions in regard to contracts. These principles are violated by the judiciary in various ways, to wit: 1. In a manner to uphold arbitrary and unconstitutional statutes against freedom in banking, and freedom in the rate of interest; thus denying the natural... (From : Anarchy Archives.)