Section 3. The payment of taxes being compulsory, of course, furnishes no
evidence that anyone voluntarily supports the Constitution. 1. It is true
that the theory of our Constitution is that all taxes are paid voluntarily, that
our government is a mutual insurance company voluntarily entered into by the
people with each other, that each man makes a free and purely voluntary
The Theory of Money is wholly different from the practical fact.
The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man, your money or your life.
And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.
The government does not indeed waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the
roadside, and holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets.
But the robbery is nonetheless a robbery on that account, and it is far more dastardly
and shameful.
The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own
act.
He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to
use it for your own benefit.
He does not pretend to be anything but a robber.
He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a protector, and that he takes
men's money against their will merely to enable him to protect those infatuated travelers
who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of
protection.
The Theory of Money and Credit
to do so, and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy of your country, and
shooting you down without mercy if you dispute his authority or resist his demands.
He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures and insults and villainies
as these.
In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to either make you his dupe or
his slave.
The proceedings of those robbers and murderers who call themselves the government are directly
in the first place, they do not, like him, make themselves individually known, or consequently,
take upon themselves personally the responsibility of their acts.
On the contrary, they secretly, by secret ballot, designate some one of their number
to commit the robbery in their behalf, while they keep themselves practically concealed.
They say to the person thus designated,
Go to A.B. and say to him that the government has need of money to meet the expenses of protecting him and his property.
If he presumes to say that he has never contracted with us to protect him, and that he wants none of our protection,
say to him that that is our business and not his, that we choose to protect him, whether he desires us to do so or not,
and that we demand pay, too, for protecting him.
If he dares to inquire who the individuals are, who have thus taken upon themselves the title of the government, and who assume to protect him, and demand payment of him, without his ever having made any contract with them, say to him that that too is our business, and not his, that we do not choose to make ourselves individually known to him, that we have secretly, by secret ballot, appointed you, our agent, to give him notice of our demands, and if he complies with them, to give him, in our name,
A receipt that will protect him against any similar demand for the present year.
If he refuses to comply, seize and sell enough of his property to pay not only our demands,
but all your own expenses and trouble besides.
If he resists the seizure of his property, call upon the bystanders to help you.
Doubtless, some of them will prove to be members of our band.
If in defending his property he should kill any of our band who are assisting you, capture
If he should call upon his neighbors, or any others who, like him, may be disposed to resist our demands, and they should come in large numbers to his assistance, cry out that they are all rebels and traitors, that our country is in danger.
Call upon the commander of our hired murderers.
Tell him to quell the rebellion, and save the country, cost what it may.
Tell him to kill all who resist, though they should be hundreds of thousands, and thus
strike terror into all others similarly disposed.
See that the work of murder is thoroughly done, that we may have no further trouble
of this kind hereafter.
When these traitors shall have thus been taught our strength and our determination, they will
be good, loyal citizens for many years, and pay their taxes without a why or a wherefore.
It is under such compulsion as this that taxes, so-called, are paid.
And how much proof the payment of taxes affords that the people consent to support the government,
it needs no further argument to show.
Two, still another reason why the payment of taxes implies no consent or pledge to support
the government is that the taxpayer does not know and has no means of knowing who the particular
individuals are who compose the government.
To him the government is a myth, an abstraction, an incorporeality with which he can make no
contract and to which he can give no consent and make no pledge.
He knows it only through its pretended agents.
The government itself he never sees.
He knows indeed by common report that certain persons of a certain age are permitted to
vote and thus to make themselves parts of or, if they choose, opponents of the government
for the time being.
But who of them do thus vote, and especially how each one votes, whether as to aid or oppose
the government, he does not know, the voting being all done secretly by secret ballot.
Who therefore practically compose the government for the time being, he has no means of knowing.
Of course he can make no contract with them, give them no consent and make them no pledge.
Of necessity therefore, his paying taxes to them implies on his part no contract, consent
3. Not knowing who the particular individuals are who call themselves the government, the
taxpayer does not know whom he pays his taxes to. All he knows is that a man comes to him
representing himself to be the agent of the government, that is, the agent of a secret
band of robbers and murderers who have taken to themselves the title of government and
and have determined to kill everybody who refuses to give them whatever money they demand.
To save his life, he gives up his money to this agent.
But as this agent does not make his principles individually known to the taxpayer, the latter,
after he has given up his money, knows no more who are the government, that is, who
were the robbers, than he did before.
To say, therefore, that by giving up his money to their agent he entered into a voluntary
4.
All political power, as it is called, rests practically upon this matter of money.
Any number of scoundrels having enough money to start with can establish themselves as
a government, because with money they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort more
Money, and also compel general obedience to their will.
It is with government, as Caesar said it was in war, that money and soldiers mutually supported
each other, that with money he could hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort money.
So these villains who call themselves governments well understand that their power rests primarily
upon money.
With money they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort money, and when their authority
When liberty is denied, the first use they always make of money is to hire soldiers to
kill or subdue all who refuse them more money.
For this reason, whoever desires liberty should understand these vital facts.
That is, one, that every man who puts money into the hands of a government, so called,
puts into its hands a sword which will be used against himself to extort more money
from him, and also to keep him in subjection to its arbitrary will.
2. That those who will take his money without his consent in the first place will use it for his further robbery and enslavement, if he presumes to resist their demands in the future.
3. That it is a perfect absurdity to suppose that any body of men would ever take a man's money without consent for any such object as they profess to take it for, that is, that of protecting him, for why should they wish to protect him if he does not wish them to do so?
To suppose that they would do so is just as absurd as it would be to suppose that they would take his money, without his consent, for the purpose of buying food or clothing for him when he did not want it.
4. If a man wants protection, he is competent to make his own bargains for it, and nobody has any occasion to rob him in order to protect him against his will.
5. That the only security men can have for their political liberty consists in their keeping their money in their own pockets, until they have assurances, perfectly satisfactory to themselves, that it will be used as they wish it to be used, for their benefit and not for their injury.
6. That no government so called can reasonably be trusted for a moment, or reasonably be supposed to have honest purposes in view any longer than it depends wholly upon voluntary support.
These facts are all so vital and so self-evident that it cannot reasonably be supposed that anyone will voluntarily pay money to a government for the purpose of securing its protection unless he first makes an explicit and purely voluntary contract with it for that purpose.
It is perfectly evident, therefore, that neither such voting nor such payment of taxes as actually takes place proves anybody's consent or obligation to support the Constitution. Consequently, we have no evidence at all that the Constitution is binding upon anybody, or that anybody is under any contract or obligation whatever to support it, and nobody is under any obligation to support it.