Letter to Texas State Legislators
LETTER TO CHALLENGE THE TEXAS STATE LEGISLATURE MEMBER'S 'RIGHT' - TO EXERCISE ANY ARBITRARY LEGISLATIVE POWER OVER THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS
This letter is based on Lysander Spooner’s letter to a U.S. Congressman many years ago. This is not my genius, but all credit goes to him. I simply formatted it to fit modern-day Texas issues. It could be used in any other state as well by replacing specific details. The purpose of this letter is in the body of the text. Let me know what you think.
Liberty or Else will send these to all 150 Texas State Legislators to weed out the honest ones that would introduce legislation on the Texans’ behalf that will hold government officials in Texas accountable for violating our natural rights.
Dear Congressmen and women of the Texas State Legislation,
LETTER TO CHALLENGE THE TEXAS STATE LEGISLATURE MEMBER'S 'RIGHT' - TO EXERCISE ANY ARBITRARY LEGISLATIVE POWER OVER THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS
The purpose of this letter is to bring to the State Legislature's attention that the people of Texas demand legal Accountability from elected and non-elected officials for creating, enforcing, and unjustly ruling in favor of laws that violate Texans' natural rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Also, to repeal all current laws that infringe on those blessings granted to them from Almighty God. It also reminds the governing body that it is not Almighty God, and they must obtain the governed's consent to exist. We're looking for honest legislators to introduce and sponsor a bill for the demands listed at the end of this letter. We're not asking. We're demanding that our natural rights in Texas are protected, and that government officials are held accountable for violating Texans' natural rights.
"The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please." Thomas Jefferson
The Texas State Legislators' actions have implied that they hold it to be at least possible that some 150 hundred men and women should, by some process or other, become invested with the right to make laws of their own - that is, laws wholly of their personal beliefs and opinions and, therefore necessarily distinct from the law of nature, of the principles of natural justice; and that these laws of their own making shall be imposed upon Thirty Million Texans by force of violence, intimidation, and coercion.
All this implies that you believe that the State Legislative of Texas, of which you are a member, has, by some process or other, become possessed of some right of arbitrary dominion over the people of Texas, which right of arbitrary dominion was not given by, and is, therefore, necessarily in conflict with, the law of nature, the principles of natural justice, and the natural rights of men and women, as individuals. All this is necessarily implied in the idea that the Texas State Congress possesses any right whatsoever to make any laws, whatever, of its device - that is, any laws that shall be either more, less, or other than that natural law, which it can neither make, unmake, nor alter - and cause them to be enforced upon the people of Texas, or any of them, against their will.
What, then, is legislation? It is an assumption by one person, or body of persons, of absolute, irresponsible dominion over all other humans whom they call subject to their power. It is the assumption by one person, or body of persons, of a right to subject all other humans to their will and service. It is the assumption by one person, or body of persons, of a right to abolish outright all the natural rights, all the natural liberty of all other humans; to make all other humans their slaves; to arbitrarily dictate to all other humans what they may, and may not, do; what they may, and may not, have; what they may, and may not, be. It is, in short, the assumption of a right to banish the principle of human rights, the principle of justice itself, from off the earth and set up their will, pleasure, and interest in its place. All this, and nothing less, is involved in the idea that there can be any such thing as human legislation that is obligatory upon those upon whom it is imposed.
You assume that the right of arbitrary dominion - the privilege of making laws of their device and compelling obedience to them - is a "trust" delegated to those who now exercise that power. You call it "the trust of public power."
But, Sirs and Madams, you need to be corrected in supposing that any such power has ever been delegated, or can be delegated, by anybody, to anybody. Any such delegation of authority is naturally impossible for these reasons:
1. No man can delegate or give to another any right of arbitrary dominion over himself; for that would be giving himself away as an enslaved person. And this no one can do. Any contract to do so is necessarily absurd and has no validity. To call such a contract a "constitution," or by any other high-sounding name, does not alter its character as an absurd and void contract.
2. No man can delegate or give to another any right of arbitrary dominion over a third person; for that would imply a right in the first person to make not only the third person his slave but also a right to dispose of him as an enslaved person to still other persons. Any contract to do this is necessarily criminal and, therefore, invalid. To call such a contract a "constitution" does not lessen its criminality or add to its validity.
These facts that no human can delegate, or give away, their natural right to liberty, nor any other human's natural right to liberty, prove that they can delegate no right of arbitrary dominion whatever - or, what is the same thing, no legislative power whatever - over themself or anybody else, to any person, or body of persons.
This impossibility of any person's delegating any legislative power, whatever, necessarily results from the fact that the law of nature has drawn the line - and that, too, a line that can never be effaced nor removed - between each person's interest and inalienable rights of person and property, and every other human's inherent and inalienable rights of person and property. It, therefore, necessarily fixes the unalterable limits within which every human may rightfully seek their happiness, in their way, free from all responsibility to, or interference by, their fellow humankind or any of them.
All this pretended delegation of legislative power - that is, of a force, on the part of the legislators, so-called, to make any laws of their device, distinct from the law of nature - is, therefore, an entire falsehood; a falsehood whose only purpose is to cover and hide a pure usurpation, by one body of humankind, of arbitrary dominion over other humans.
That this legislative power, or power of arbitrary dominion, is a pure usurpation on the part of those who now exercise it and not a "trust" delegated to them is still further proved by the fact that the only delegation of power that is even professed or pretended to be made is made secretly - that is, by secret ballot - and not in any open and authentic manner; and therefore not by any person, or body of humankind, who make themselves personally responsible, as principals, for the acts of those to whom they profess to delegate the power.
All this pretended delegation of power having been made secretly - that is, only by secret ballot - not a single one of all the legislators, so-called, who profess to be exercising only a delegated power, has themself any legal knowledge or can offer any legal proof, as to who the particular individuals were who delegated it to him. And having no power to identify the individuals who professed to delegate the authority to them, they cannot show any legal proof that anybody even attempted or pretended to delegate it to them.
Plainly, a person who exercises any arbitrary dominion over other humans and who claims to be exercising only a delegated power, but cannot show who their principals are nor, consequently, prove that they have any principals, must be presumed, both in law and reason, to have no principals; and therefore to be exercising no power but their own. And having, of right, no such authority of their own, they are, both in law and reason, a naked usurper.
Sirs and madams, a secret ballot make a secret government; a secret government is a government by a conspiracy in which the people can have no rights. And that is the only government we have now. It is the government of which you are a voluntary member and supporter, yet you claim to be honest. If you are honest, is not your honesty that of a thoughtless, ignorant person who merely drifts with the current instead of exercising any judgment of their own?
For another reason, all legislators, under the Constitution of Texas, are exercising simply an arbitrary and irresponsible dominion of their own and not any authority that has been delegated to them by the consent of the governed or pretended to have been entrusted to them. And that reason is that the Texas State Constitution itself (Article 3, Section 21) prescribes that:
There is no accountability for their unjust actions, and they are granted special privileges not afforded to all Texans.
"Sec. 3. EQUAL RIGHTS. All freemen*, when they form a social compact, have equal rights, and no man, or set of men, is entitled to exclusive separate public emoluments or privileges, but in consideration of public services. (Feb. 15, 1876.)"
"WORDS SPOKEN IN DEBATE. No member shall be questioned in
any other place for words spoken in debate in either House. (Feb. 15, 1876.)"
"Sec. 14. PRIVILEGE FROM ARREST DURING LEGISLATIVE SESSION. Senators and Representatives shall, except in cases of treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during the session of the Legislature, and in going to and returning from the same. (Feb. 15, 1876. Amended Nov. 2, 1999.)"
These provisions make the legislators constitutionally irresponsible to anybody, either those on whom they exercise their power or those who may have, either openly or secretly, attempted or pretended to delegate authority to them. And persons who are legally responsible to nobody for their acts cannot be said to be the agents of anybody or to be exercising any power but their own; for all real agents are necessarily responsible both to those on whom they act and to those for whom they serve.
To say that Texans ever have bound, or ever could bind, themselves by any contract whatsoever - the Texas Constitution, or any other - to thus give away all their natural rights of property, liberty, and life into the hands of a few humans - a mere conclave - and that they should make it a part of the contract itself that these few persons should be held legally irresponsible for the disposal they should make of those rights, is an utter absurdity. It is to say that they have bound themselves and could bind themselves by an utterly idiotic and suicidal contract.
If such a contract had ever been made by one private individual to another, and had been signed, sealed, witnessed, acknowledged, and delivered, with all possible legal formalities, no proper court on earth - certainly none in Texas - would have regarded it, for a moment, as conveying any right, or delegating any power, or as having the slightest legal validity, or obligation.
For all the reasons now given, and for still others that might be provided, the legislative power directly exercised by Texas State Legislature is, in both law and reason, a purely personal, arbitrary, irresponsible, usurped dominion on the part of the legislators themselves, and not a power delegated to them by anybody.
Yet under the pretense that this instrument gives them the right of arbitrary and irresponsible dominion over the whole people of Texas, the Legislature has now gone on, for over a century and more, filling significant volumes with laws of their device, which the people at large have never read, nor even seen nor ever will read or see; and of whose legal meanings it is morally impossible that they should ever know anything. Texas State Legislators have never dared to require the people to read these laws. Had it done so, the oppression would have been an intolerable one; and the people, rather than endure it, would have either rebelled and overthrown the government or would have fled the state or country. Yet these laws, which the Texas State Legislators have not dared to require the people even to read, compelled them to obey at the point of the bayonet.
And this moral, legal, and political monstrosity is the kind of government Texas State Legislators claim the Texas State Constitution authorizes it to impose upon Texans.
Sirs and madams, can you say that such an arbitrary and irresponsible dominion as this, over the properties, liberties, and lives of thirty million Texans - or even over the property, liberty, or life of any one of those thirty million - can be justified on any reason whatsoever? If not, with what color of truth can you say that you, yourself, or anybody else, can act as a legislator under the Texas State Constitution and yet be honest?
To say that the arbitrary and irresponsible dominion exercised by Texas State Legislators has been delegated to it by the Texas State Constitution and not solely by the voters' secret ballots, for the time being, is the height of absurdity; for what is the Constitution? It is, at best, a writing that was drawn up more than a century ago; was assented to at the time of a predominately small number of men, generally, those few white male adults who had prescribed amounts of property, probably not more than two hundred thousand in all; or one in twenty of the whole population.
Those men have been long since dead.
They never had any right of arbitrary dominion over even their contemporaries, and they never had any over us. Their wills or wishes have no more rightful authority over us than those who lived before the flood. In any open and authentic manner, they never bound even themselves to obey it or made themselves personally responsible for the acts of their so-called agents under it. They had no natural right to impose it, as law, upon a single human being. The whole proceeding was a pure usurpation.
In practice, the Texas State Constitution has been an utter fraud from the beginning. Professing to have been "ordained and established" with "Humbly invoking the blessings of Almighty God, the people of the State of Texas, do ordain and establish this Constitution," it has never been submitted to them, as individuals, for their voluntary acceptance or rejection. They have never been asked to sign, seal, acknowledge, or deliver it as their free act and deed. They have never signed, sealed, accepted, given, promised, or laid themselves under any obligation to obey it. Very few of them have ever read or even seen it or will read or see it. They know very little of its legal meaning (if it can be said to have any) and never did, nor ever will, understand anything.
Why is it, Sirs and Madams, that such an instrument as the Texas State Constitution, for which nobody has been responsible and of which few persons have ever known anything, has suffered to stand for over a century and to be used for such audacious and criminal purposes? It is solely because the same kind of conspiracy has sustained it as it was established; that is, by the wealth and the power of those few who were to profit by the arbitrary dominion it was assumed to give them over others. While the poor, the weak, and the ignorant, who were to be cheated, plundered, and enslaved by it, have been told, and some doubtless made to believe, that it is a sacred instrument designed for the preservation of their rights.
These cheated, plundered, and enslaved persons have been made to feel, if not to believe, that the Texas State Constitution had such miraculous power that it could authorize the majority (or even a plurality) of the male adults during that time - the right to exercise, through their agents, secretly appointed, an arbitrary and irresponsible dominion over the properties, liberties, and lives of Texans; and that these persons have no reasonable alternative but to submit all their rights to this arbitrary dominion, or suffer such confiscation, imprisonment, or death as this secretly appointed, irresponsible cabal, of so-called legislators, should see fit to resort to for the maintenance of its power.
As might have been expected, and as was, to a large degree, at least, intended, the Texas State Constitution has been used from the beginning by ambitious, rapacious, and unprincipled persons to enable them to maintain, at the point of the bayonet an arbitrary and irresponsible dominion over those who were too ignorant and too weak to protect themselves against the conspirators who had thus combined to deceive, plunder, and enslave them.
Do you think, Sirs and Madams, that such a constitution as this can justify those who, like yourself, are enforcing it? Is it not plain, instead, that the members of the Texas State Legislators, as a legislative body, whether they are conscious of it or not, are, in reality, a mere cabal of swindlers, usurpers, tyrants, and robbers? Is it not plain that they are stupendous blockheads if they imagine anything other than such a cabal? Or that their so-called laws impose the least obligation upon anybody?
If you have never looked at this matter in this light before, I ask you to do so now. And in the hope of aiding you in doing so candidly and for some useful purpose, I will take the liberty to email you the pamphlet upon request entitled:
"NATURAL LAW; OR THE SCIENCE OF JUSTICE; a Treatise of Natural Law, Natural Justice, Natural Rights, Natural Liberty, and Natural Society, Showing That All Legislation whatsoever Is an Absurdity, a Usurpation, and a Crime. Part 1." by Lysander Spooner
In this pamphlet, Lysander Spooner has endeavored to controvert distinctly the proposition that, by any possible process whatever, any human, or body of humans, can become possessed of any right of arbitrary dominion over other human beings, or other persons' property, or, consequently, any right whatever to make any law whatever, of their own - distinct from the law of nature - and compel any other person to obey it.
I trust I need not suspect you, as a legislator under the Texas State Constitution and claiming to be honest, of any desire to evade the issue presented in this pamphlet. Suppose you see fit to meet it. In that case, I hope you will excuse me for suggesting that - to avoid verbiage and everything indefinite - you give at least a single specimen of a law that either previously has been made or that you conceive it possible for legislators to make - that is, some law of their device - that either has been, or shall be, really and genuinely obligatory upon other persons, and which such other persons have been, or maybe, rightfully compelled to obey.
If you can either find or devise any such law, I trust you will make it known that it may be examined and the question of its obligation be fairly settled in the popular mind.
But you should need help finding such a law in the existing statute books of Texas or, in your mind, conceive of such a law as possible under the Texas State Constitution. In that case, I give you leave to find it in the constitution or statute book of any other people that now exist or ever have existed on the earth.
If, finally, you shall find no such law anywhere nor be able to conceive of any such law yourself, I take the liberty to suggest that it is your imperative duty to submit the question to your associate legislators; and, if they can give no light on the subject, that you call upon them to burn all the existing statute books of the state of Texas, and then to go home and content themselves with the exercise of only such rights and powers as nature has given to them in common with the rest of humankind.
I will add that if the Texas State Legislature is unwilling to work with the people in Texas to end these arbitrary practices that violate our natural human rights to life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness, we will move on to Plan B and use Article 1.2 of the Texas Constitution without you and form a government that will protect our natural human rights.
"Sec. 2. INHERENT POLITICAL POWER; REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT. All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit. The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient. (Feb. 15, 1876.)"
While Article 1.29 was supposed to protect Texans from irresponsible and tyrannical legislatures that pass laws that rob Texans of their natural rights, the justice system has failed to protect them. It has allowed unjust laws to be tried in courts. Intimidation, extortion, and coercion have been used to force people into plea deals that rob them of their rights to life, liberty, property, and their pursuit of happiness.
When legislatures are advised that the laws they pass infringe on Texans' rights, they shrug and say let the courts decide. What does that sound like to you? That you are all in on this together.
"Sec. 29. BILL OF RIGHTS EXCEPTED FROM POWERS OF GOVERNMENT AND INVIOLATE. To guard against transgressions of the high powers herein delegated, we declare that every thing in this "Bill of Rights" is excepted out of the general powers of government, and shall forever remain inviolate, and all laws contrary thereto, or to the following provisions, shall be void. (Feb. 15, 1876.)"
What needs to happen moving forward?
Here are our demands:
Legal Accountability for Sponsors, Co-Sponsors, or any Legislative Branch members introducing bills violating any Texans' natural human rights. Their punishment must be immediate removal from office; they can never hold a government position again and receive the same punishment they were trying to write into law.
Legal Accountability for any Member of the Executive Branch that enforces any laws that violate Texans' natural human rights. Their punishment must be immediate removal from office. They can never hold another government position again and receive the same punishment for the law they tried to enforce.
Legal Accountability for any Member of the Judicial Branch that issues any judgments that violate any Texans' natural human rights.
This includes all governing members, departments, and agencies at all Texas government levels.
The people of Texas have a right to issue warrants for said person to be judged by their accusers expediently.
The people of Texas can alter, reform, or abolish our government whenever and however we see fit. When the people demand changes to keep the government in check, they must immediately remove powers from the Texas government when they see fit.
Any Texan or Texan family affected by the current authoritarian Texas government system must be immediately released from captivity and justly compensated for the life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness stolen from them.