Section 2. Let us consider these two matters, voting and tax-paying, separately.
And first, of voting.
All the voting that has ever taken place under the Constitution has been of such a kind that it not only did not pledge the whole people to support the Constitution,
but it did not even pledge any one of them to do so, as the following considerations show.
1.
In the very nature of things, the act of voting could bind nobody but the actual voters.
But owing to the property qualifications required, it is probable that during the first twenty
or thirty years under the Constitution, not more than one-tenth, fifteenth, or perhaps
twentieth of the whole population, black and white, men, women, and minors, were permitted
to vote.
Consequently, so far as voting was concerned, not more than one-tenth, fifteenth, or twentieth
of those then existing could have incurred any obligation to support the Constitution.
At the present time, it is probable that not more than one-sixth of the whole population
are permitted to vote.
Consequently, so far as voting is concerned, the other five-sixths can have given no pledge
that they will support the Constitution.
2.
Of the one-sixth that are permitted to vote, probably not more than two-thirds, about one-ninth
of the whole population, have usually voted.
Many never vote at all.
Many vote only once in two, three, five, or ten years in periods of great excitement.
No one, by voting, can be said to pledge himself for any longer period than that for which
he votes.
If, for example, I vote for an officer who is to hold his office for only a year, I cannot
be said to have thereby pledged myself to support the government beyond that term.
Therefore, on the ground of actual voting, it probably cannot be said that more than
one-ninth or one-eighth of the whole population are usually under any pledge to support the
Constitution.
3.
It cannot be said that by voting a man pledges himself to support the Constitution unless
the act of voting be a perfectly voluntary one on his part.
Yet the act of voting cannot properly be called a voluntary one on the part of any very large
number of those who do vote.
It is rather a measure of necessity imposed upon them by others than of one of their own
choosing.
On this point I repeat what was said in a former number, that is,
In truth, the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent,
even for the time being.
On the contrary, it is to be considered that without his consent having even been asked,
a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist, a government that forces
him to pay money, render service, and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights
under the peril of weighty punishments.
He sees too that other men practice this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot.
He sees further that if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving
himself from this tyranny of others by subjecting them to his own.
In short, he finds himself without his consent so situated that if he used the ballot he
may become a master, if he does not use it, he must become a slave, and he has no other
alternative than these two.
In self-defense, he attempts the former.
His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must
either kill others or be killed himself.
Because to save his own life in battle, a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents,
it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing.
Neither in contests with the ballot, which is a mere substitute for a bullet, because
Because as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred
that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered, that he voluntarily set up all his
natural rights as a stake against those of others to be lost or won by the mere power
of numbers?
On the contrary, it is to be considered that in an exigency into which he had been forced
by others, and in which no other means of self-defense offered, he, as a matter of necessity,
The Theory of Money and Credit
On general principles of law and reason, it cannot be said that the government has any voluntary supporters at all, until it can be distinctly shown who its voluntary supporters are.
4.
As taxation is made compulsory on all, whether they vote or not, a large proportion of those
who vote no doubt do so to prevent their own money being used against themselves, when
in fact they would have gladly abstained from voting if they could thereby have saved themselves
from taxation alone, to say nothing of being saved from all the other usurpations and tyrannies
of the government.
To take a man's property without his consent, and then to infer his consent because he
The attempts by voting to prevent that property from being used to his injury is a very insufficient
proof of his consent to support the Constitution.
It is, in fact, no proof at all.
And as we can have no legal knowledge as to who the particular individuals are, if there
are any who are willing to be taxed for the sake of voting, we can have no legal knowledge
that any particular individual consents to being taxed for the sake of voting, or consequently
Consents to Support the Constitution 5.
At nearly all elections, votes are given for various candidates for the same office.
Those who vote for the unsuccessful candidates cannot properly be said to have voted to sustain
the Constitution.
They may, with more reason, be supposed to have voted not to support the Constitution,
but specially to prevent the tyranny which they anticipate the successful candidate intends
6. Many votes are usually given for candidates who have no prospect of success. Those who
7. As all the different votes are given secretly, by secret ballot, there is no legal means of knowing, from the votes themselves, who votes for and who against the Constitution.
Therefore, voting affords no legal evidence that any particular individual supports the Constitution, and where there can be no legal evidence that any particular individual supports the Constitution, it cannot legally be said that anybody supports it.
It is clearly impossible to have any legal proof of the intentions of large numbers of men, where there can be no legal proof of the intentions of any particular one of them.
8. There being no legal proof of any man's intentions in voting, we can only conjecture them.
As a conjecture, it is probable that a very large proportion of those who vote do so on this principle.
That is, that if by voting they could but get the government into their own hands, or that of their friends, and use its powers against their opponents, they would then willingly support the Constitution.
But if their opponents are to have the power and use it against them, then they would not
willingly support the Constitution.
In short, men's voluntary support of the Constitution is doubtless, in most cases, wholly contingent
upon the question whether by means of the Constitution they can make themselves masters
or are to be made slaves.
Such contingent consent as that is in law and reason, no consent at all.
9.
As everybody who supports the Constitution by voting, if there are any such, does so
secretly by secret ballot, and in way to avoid all personal responsibility for the act of
its agents or representatives, it cannot legally or reasonably be said that anybody at all
supports the Constitution by voting.
No man can reasonably or legally be said to do such a thing as to assent to or support
the Constitution, unless he does it openly and in a way to make himself personally responsible
for the acts of his agents, so long as they act within the limits of the power he delegates
to them.
10.
As all voting is secret by secret ballot, and as all secret governments are necessarily
only secret bands of robbers, tyrants and murderers, the general fact that our government
is practically carried on by means of such voting only proves that there is among us
is a secret band of robbers, tyrants and murderers, whose purpose is to rob and slave and, so
far as necessary to accomplish their purposes, murder the rest of the people.
The simple fact of the existence of such a band does nothing towards proving that the
people of the United States, or any one of them, voluntarily supports the Constitution.
For all the reasons that have now been given, voting furnishes no legal evidence as to
to who the particular individuals are, if there are any, who voluntarily support the
Constitution.
It therefore furnishes no legal evidence that anybody supports it voluntarily.
So far, therefore as voting is concerned, the Constitution, legally speaking, has no
supporters at all.
And as a matter of fact, there is not the slightest probability that the Constitution
has a single bona fide supporter in the country.
That is to say, there is not the slightest probability that there is a single man in
the country who both understands what the Constitution really is and sincerely supports
it for what it really is.
The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other
governments, are made up of three classes, that is, one, NAVES, a numerous and active
class who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement
or Wealth.
2.
Dupes.
A large class, no doubt, each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in
deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted
to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in
robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a free
man, a sovereign, that this is a free government, a government of equal rights, the best government
on Earth and such like absurdities, a class who have some appreciation of the evils of
government but either do not see how to get rid of them or do not choose to so far sacrifice
their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making
Making a Change.