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The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself is guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish! If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow citizens to it.
We hold the gift which includes all others. This gift is life - physical, intellectual, and moral life. But life cannot maintain itself. Each of us is responsible for preserving, developing, and perfecting our one and only life. (This is not a responsibility that can be delegated.) This is accomplished by the application of our marvelous faculties to the variety of natural resources we convert into products, and use to further our well-being. Individuality, rationality, production - in other words, Life, Liberty, Property - this is man. And in spite of artful political leaders, these three rights precede all legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed that caused man to make laws in the first place.
What, then, is law? It is the (formal) collective organization of the individuals natural right of self defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and moral right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over all.
And, in all sincerity, can anything more than the absence of plunder be required of the law? Can the law be rationally used for anything except protecting the rights of everyone equally? I defy anyone to extend it beyond this purpose without perverting it and, consequently, turning might against right. Objective law is organized justice. Now this must be said: When justice is organized by law - that is, by force - this excludes the idea of using law (force) to organize any human activity whatever, whether it be labor, charity, agriculture, commerce, industry, education, art, or religion. The organizing by law of any of these would inevitably destroy the essential organization - justice. For truly, how can we imagine force being used against the liberty of citizens without it also being used against justice, and thus acting against its proper purpose? We must remember that law is force, and that, consequently, the proper functions of the law cannot morally extend beyond the proper functions of force - self defense. When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property. The usefulness of law and lawful self defense is obvious and the legitimacy cannot be disputed.
Actually, what is the political struggle we witness? It is the natural struggle of all people toward liberty. And what is this liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties - liberty of conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of travel, of labor, of trade? In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm others while doing so? Is liberty not the destruction of all despotism - including legal despotism? Finally, is not liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual to lawful self defense; of punishing injustice?
Objective law is justice. Is not justice right? Are not rights equal? By what whim does the law force me to conform to the social ideals of another? If the law has a moral right to do this, why does it not, force others to submit to my whims? Should the law choose one fantasy among many, and put the organized force of government at its service only?
Objective law is justice. And it is under the law of justice - under the reign of right; under the influence of liberty, safety, stability, and responsibility - that every person will attain his real worth and the true dignity of his being. It is only under this law of justice that mankind will achieve the orderly and peaceful progress of humanity. It seems to me that this is right, for whatever question is under discussion - whether religious, philosophical, political, or economic; whether it concerns prosperity, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, cooperation, property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxes, population, finance, or government - at whatever point on the scientific horizon I begin my researches, I invariably reach this one conclusion: The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty.
And does not experience prove this? Look at the entire world. Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral, and the happiest people? Those people are found in the areas where the law least interferes with private affairs; where government is least felt; where the individual has the greatest scope, and free opinion the greatest influence; where administrative powers are fewest and simplest; where taxes are lightest and most nearly equal, and popular discontent the least excited and the least justifiable; Where individuals and groups most actively assume their responsibilities, and, consequently, where the morals of admittedly imperfect human beings are constantly improving; where trade, capital, and populations suffer the fewest forced displacements; where mankind most nearly follows its own inclinations; where the inventions of men are most nearly in harmony with the laws of nature; in short, the happiest, most moral, and most peaceful people are those who stick closest to this principle: Although mankind is not perfect, still, all hope rests upon the free and voluntary actions of persons within the limits of right; law or force can be used for nothing except the administration of universal justice.
Life gives men all that is necessary to realize their destinies. It provides a social form as well a human form. And these social organs of persons are so constituted that they will develop themselves harmoniously in the clean air of liberty. Away, then, with the quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, chains, hooks, and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their equalizations by taxation, and their pious moralizations! And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is the acknowledgement of the rational nature of man.