Page:The Chicago Martyrs (1899).pdf/116

 108 the government consists of one over the million, or a million over one, an Anarchist is opposed to the rule of majorites as well as minorities. If a man has a right he has a right, whether that right be denied by a million or by one. Right is right, and the majority that sets itself up to dictate to minorities simply transform itself into tyrants; they become usurpers; they deny the natural right of their fellowmen. Now, sir, this would put an end to the law factory business. What would become of your law makers? Why, a human law maker, your honor, in my humble judgment, is a human humbug. Yes, sir, just think of these law factories that we have throughout the country, the legislatures of our states and the union, where they manufacture laws just as we go to a factory to manufacture a pair of boots! Why, your honor, the same pair of boots won't fit every man; how can you make a law that will apply to the individual cases of each one?

Now, your honor, I suppose that you would hold, like they did in the days of old—I don't know whether you will or not, but there are some men who would hold—that a man who would adhere to this kind of opinions ought to die; that this world has got no use for him. Well, that remains to be seen.

The natural and the imprescriptible right of all is the right of each to control oneself. Anarchy is a free society where there is no concentrated or centralized power, no State, no king, no emperor, no ruler, no president, no magistrate, no potentate of any. character whatever. Law is the enslaving power of man. Blackstone defines the law to be a rule of action. I believe that is it. Colonel Foster, I would like to ask your opinion if that quotation is correct. Blackstone describes the law to be a rule of action, prescribing what is right and prohibiting what is wrong. Very true. Now, Anarchists hold that it is wrong for one person to prescribe what is the right action for another person, and then compel that person to obey that rule. Therefore, right action consists in each person attending to his business and allowing everybody else to do likewise. Whoever prescribes a rule of action for another to obey is a tyrant, a usurper, and an enemy of liberty. This is precisely what every statute does. Anarchy is the natural law, instead of the man made statute, and gives men leaders in the place of drivers and bosses. All political law, statute and common, gets its right to operate from the statute; therefore all political law is statute law. A statute law is a written scheme by which cunning takes advantage of the unsuspecting, and provides the inducement to do so, and protects the one who does it. In other words, a statute is the science of rascality or the law of usurpation. If a few sharks rob mankind of all the earth, turn them all out of house and home, make them ragged slaves and beggars, and freeze and starve them to death, still they are expected to obey the statute because it is sacred. This ridiculous nonsense that human laws are sacred and that if they are not respected and continued we cannot prosper, is the stupidest and most criminal nightmare of the age. Statutes are the last and greatest curse of man, and when destroyed the world will be free. The statute book is a book of laws by which one class of people can safely trespass upon another. Without this book one person would never dare to trespass upon the rights of another. Every statute law is always used to oppose some natural law. (I am reading a few extracts from an editorial in the Alarm). A statute is always used to oppose some natural law,