Individuals who want to learn about the relationship between libertarianism and the
law will benefit immensely by simply reading the writings of Lysander Spooner
(1808–87). In the introduction to Lysander Spooner: American Anarchist, political
scientist Steve Shone eschews this approach, however, in favor of analyzing Spooner’s
works using “the various categorizations prized by political philosophers” (p. xii).
Unfortunately, at slightly more than one hundred pages, Shone’s book does not do
analytical justice to Spooner’s lifetime of work. That work has much of importance to
tell us; Shone’s does not.
The problems that beset the book begin with its title. The work that Spooner
produced in the last two decades of his life is routinely labeled anarchical; indeed, in
the 1870s and 1880s he was held in high regard by many Americans who aligned
themselves with anarchist movements—such as Benjamin R. Tucker, who considered
Spooner one of his mentors. It is rare, however, to find scholars arguing that
his earlier essays and legal treatises (which he produced over the course of four
decades, beginning in 1834) were underpinned by principles commonly understood
as anarchical—libertarian, yes, but anarchical, no. In this respect, Shone sought to
break new ground in his book, arguing that anarchical is a suitable appellation for the
entirety of Spooner’s works. Unfortunately, nowhere does he provide us with his
definition of anarchism. We are told that Spooner was an American Anarchist (Shone
purposefully capitalizes both words), which means that he was a “bearer . . . of a
distinctive ideology that calls into question the routine left–right scheme of classification”
(p. xiii). But this statement is hopelessly vague. It might as easily be applied to
libertarianism, and it is also an appropriate way to describe the voting patterns of
ticket-splitting independents. Shone clearly does not want us to identify Spooner as
someone whose views aligned with the stereotypical “bomb-throwing” anarchists.
However, absent a detailed description of the American Anarchism of which Spooner
was supposed to be a follower (and perhaps a leader), this conclusion is exactly the
one that Shone’s book will encourage people to reach.
This aspect of the book is troubling because although interest in Spooner has
increased in recent years, it has not always increased because people have had a
serious desire to gain a deep and extensive understanding of the man and his work.
Despite notable exceptions, people are often drawn to his work because he is a
really good source for an ideologically diverse array of sound bites. Shone argues
that “[t]oday, the limited number of people who recognize the name Lysander
Spooner chiefly recall him as a nineteenth-century abolitionist” (p. vii). This claim is
simply not true; it fails to appreciate that even within academia and certainly beyond
it the people who “recognize” Spooner’s name have for a long time invariably
associated it with the other topics about which he wrote. True, in recent years the
scholars who have focused on Spooner’s abolitionist work have significantly
enhanced his profile (including, for example, the first substantive references to his
writings to appear in a U.S. Supreme Court opinion—namely, McDonald v. City of
Chicago [561 U.S., 130 S.Ct. 3020 (2010)], which cites The Unconstitutionality of
Slavery). However, to get to the top of the pedestal on which many members of the
classical-liberal community (and now, it should be noted, Tea Party activists) place
Spooner, one usually climbs steps lined with his writings about the monopoly of
the U.S. Postal Service or his post–Civil War works (which are closer in content to
what one might usually associate with anarchist thought), most notably No Treason.
No. VI. The Constitution of No Authority (1870).
Even though some of these readings have gained cult followings for reasons
that might concern Spooner (although he would be thrilled with the publicity), the
reader can identify most easily the basic libertarian principles to which Spooner
held firm throughout his life in these essays. It is therefore appropriate that Shone
discusses many of them in the first two chapters of his book. However, when Spooner
wrote about natural law, property rights (including intellectual property), the postal
monopoly, and economics, he made it very easy for the reader to understand (if not
to agree with) his position on the merits of limited government. Sad to say, Shone
has not elucidated this position by using the strong, logical analysis that was
Spooner’s trademark.
This criticism also applies to chapters 3 and 4, but to a lesser extent. Dealing
with Spooner on political obligation and jury nullification, respectively, these chapters
are clearly the most focused and analytically developed parts of the book. Yet a
significant shortcoming remains: the presence of distracting pages of questionable
relevance. It is interesting to learn about the similarities and differences between
modern theories of jury nullification and the theory Spooner composed, but this
lesson does not require an extensive discussion of twentieth-century court decisions
on the subject. Shone doubtless found it necessary to include these references in
the law review article from which chapter 4 is adapted, but more aggressive editing
was needed to turn the article into a workable and engaging chapter for the book.
Chapter 5, which pertains to Spooner’s antislavery arguments, suffers from a
different problem: inadequate contextualization that leads to misleading portrayals
of Spooner’s positions. For example, in the 1840s Spooner penned The Unconstitutionality
of Slavery. Shone contends that Spooner almost immediately afterward
began to pen antislavery work that embodied a “less constitutionalist, and more
radical, violent approach” to abolitionism (p. vii). In the 1850s, Spooner did indeed
write some essays that might be used as evidence in support of this conclusion.
However, in Shone’s book we are never told about the way in which the abolitionist
movement in general adopted more radical and violent tactics during this decade,
following the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. We are similarly deprived of the
important contextual knowledge that can be gleaned from the hundreds of letters
that compose the collections of Spooner’s surviving correspondence. To be fair,
Shone does provide a partial explanation for the absence of such material. He tells
us that he purposefully wrote “a work of political theory—not a history book, and
certainly not a biography” (p. xv). Unfortunately, this statement is accompanied by
the following disclaimer: “[T]he limited number of sources available to any chronicler
of Spooner’s life would make that [historical-biographical] task exceedingly
difficult to execute” (p. xv). Perhaps this statement reflects Shone’s training—he is a
political scientist rather than a historian. However, the fact that his book does
contain some references to these letters, which clearly enhance rather than merely
supplement his analysis, makes him seem guilty of poor scholarship regardless of the
specific field in which he was trained.
Shone brings the book to a close in chapter 6 by identifying the core principles
present in some of Spooner’s shorter (and frequently overlooked) works about
religion (in particular deism), morality, and legal education. Although these writings
share a relative brevity and exemplify the work to which one might point when
labeling Spooner a pamphleteer, it is unfortunate that they are discussed together in
Shone’s book. Thus, the same organizational flaw from which the previous five
chapters suffer also mars this one. Spooner wrote about religion and legal education
in the 1830s; Vices Are Not Crimes, in which he tackles morality, appeared more
than four decades later. To be sure, these early works are marked by “the application
of an unfettered logic, regardless of consequences, that favors no belief or person in
a disinterested quest for the truth, something that the author believed was the right
of every human being, as a corollary of natural law” (p. 98). And it is true that these
characteristics formed the philosophical foundations of every work that Spooner
penned thereafter, including Vices. However, at the end of this very short (ten-page)
chapter and therefore of the book, one is left wondering what else—besides commitments
to logic, natural justice, and individualism—unites Spooner’s writings
about religion, morality, and legal education.
If Shone set out to argue that his subject “should be taken much more
seriously as a political theorist” (p. xiv), then he probably succeeded. In this respect,
people who are interested in libertarian principles should be grateful for the publication
of Lysander Spooner: American Anarchist. By contrast, if Shone sought to
convince his readers that Spooner is an “American Anarchist,” it must be said for
substantive and methodological reasons that he failed. This failure, I suspect,
occurred because he was trying to achieve the impossible: to make Spooner into
something that he never was. Yes, toward the end of his life, as he became increasingly
embittered by the post–Civil War evolution of American society and the federal
government’s changing role, he put pen to paper in ways that appealed to many who
called themselves anarchists. However, his later-life work product should not be
understood to have given him membership in “a particular cohort whose output is
best understood as a distinctive ideology in its own right” (p. x). Throughout his
life, Spooner’s work was marked by libertarian commitments, which did indeed
create a “distinctive ideology.” But it was an ideology for which there could ever be
only a single spokesman. Spooner was the ultimate, individualistic army of one. And
I suspect that he would not have had it any other way.
Buy Lysander Spooner: American Anarchist at Amazon.com for $42.07 (Hardcover)
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Volume 16 Number 2
Fall 2011
Independent Review Articles on Related Subjects
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