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RANDY E. BARNETT, "THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LYSANDER SPOONDER" A DISCUSSION HELD IN JANUARY, 2016. Online: <http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/lm-spooner Ebooks: <http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2722>. The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) Bela Marsh, 1860) Summary In this month’s Liberty Matters online discussion Randy Barnett, the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory at the Georgetown University Law Center, explores the political thought and constitutional theories of the 19th century American individualist, anarchist, and abolitionist Lysander Spooner (1808-1887). He concludes that “Spooner’s approach to constitutional interpretation, construction, and legitimacy is as fresh today as it was in 1845. Indeed, it is more sophisticated and persuasive than the theorizing of most contemporary legal academics.” He is joined in the discussion by Roderick T. Long, professor of philosophy at Auburn University, Aeon J. Skoble, professor of philosophy at Bridgewater State University, and Matt Zwolinski, associate professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego. 1 of 41 About Liberty Matters and the Online Library of Liberty “Liberty Matters” is a project of Liberty Fund, Inc. which is part of the Online Library of Liberty website. Every two months we ask a leading scholar to present an argument on a particular topic “pertaining to liberty” in a “Lead Essay” and to develop this argument at some length. The “Lead Essay” is posted in the first week of the month. Three or four other scholars will respond to this essay in slightly shorter “Response Essays” during the second week of the month. Once all these ideas and arguments are on the table an open discussion between the various parties takes place over the course of the following weeks. At the end of the month the online discussion is closed. We plan to have discussions about some of the most important online resources which can be found of the Online Library of Liberty website. We will link to these resources wherever possible from the essays and responses of our discussants so our reader can find out more about the topic under discussion. The complete collection of Liberty Matters can be found here <http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/liberty-matters>. EBook versions of these discussions in PDF, ePub, and Kindle formats can be found at <http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2516>. Copyright & Fair Use Statement "Liberty Matters" is the copyright of Liberty Fund, Inc. This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. These essays and responses may be quoted and otherwise used under "fair use" provisions for educational and academic purposes. To reprint these essays in course booklets requires the prior permission of Liberty Fund, Inc. Please contact the OLL Editor if you have any questions. About the Online Library of Liberty and Liberty Fund The Online Library of Liberty is a project of Liberty Fund, Inc., a private educational foundation established in 1960 to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. The OLL website has a large collection of books and study guides about individual liberty, limited constitutional government, the free market, and peace. Liberty Fund: <www.libertyfund.org>. OLL: <oll.libertyfund.org>. The Debate Lead Essay: Randy E. Barnett, "The Significance of Lysander Spooner" [Posted: Jan.4, 2016] Responses and Critiques 1. Roderick T. Long, "Spooner Defended" [Posted: Jan. 6, 2016] 2. Aeon J. Skoble, "The Spooner Zone: Randy Barnett on Spooner, Natural Rights, and Constitutionalism" [Posted: Jan. 7, 2016] 3. Matt Zwolinski, "On Constitutions, Coercion, and Coordination" [Posted: Jan. 8, 2016] The Conversation 1. Randy E. Barnett, "The Gap" [Posted: Jan. 11, 2016] 2. Matt Zwolinski, "On Clear Cases of Injustice" [Posted: Jan. 13, 2016] 3. Aeon Skoble, "Thesis and Nomos" [Posted: Jan. 13, 2016] 4. Roderick T. Long, "Realism and Reference" [Posted: Jan. 13, 2016] 5. Roderick T. Long, "Legitimacy and Monopoly" [Posted: Jan. 14, 2016] 6. Matt Zwolinski, "Consent, Legitimacy, and Risk" [Posted: Jan. 15, 2016] 7. Roderick T. Long, "No Laws But Just Laws?" [Posted: Jan. 26, 2016] 8. Roderick T. Long, "No Law But the Natural Law?" [Posted: Jan. 26, 2016] 9. Aeon Skoble, "Fake Law or Bad Law?" [Posted: Jan. 26, 2016] 10. Randy E. Barnett, "Procedural Justice and Constitutional Legitimacy" [Posted: Jan. 27, 2016] 11. Roderick T. Long, "Bad Laws and Good Rhetoric" [Posted: Jan. 29, 2016] 12. Roderick T. Long, "Private Judgment and Public Justification" [Posted: Jan. 29, 2016] 13. Roderick T. Long, "More on Private Judgment and Public Justification" [Posted: Jan. 29, 2016] 14. Matt Zwolinski, "Spooner on Historical Injustice" [Posted: Jan. 31, 2016] 15. Roderick T. Long, "Lysander Spooner’s Theory of Class" [Posted: Jan. 31, 2016] 16. Roderick T. Long, "Lysander Spooner’s Theory of Property" [Posted: Feb. 1, 2016] 17. Aeon Skoble, "Rectification and Knowledge" [Posted: Feb. 2, 2016] 2 of 41 About the Authors Randy E. Barnett is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts, and is Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. After graduating from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, he tried many felony cases as a prosecutor in the Cook County States’ Attorney’s Office in Chicago. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies, Professor Barnett has been a visiting professor at Penn, Northwestern and Harvard Law School. His coauthored book, A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave) was published in 2013. New expanded editions of his books, Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (Princeton) and The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law (Oxford) were published in 2015. His other books include The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Contracts (Oxford 2010), Contracts: Cases and Doctrine (Wolters Kluwer, 5th ed. 2012), and Constitutional Law: Cases in Context (Wolters Kluwer, 2nd ed. 2013). His book Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of the People will be published by HarperCollins in April 2016 - <http://www.amazon.com/dp/0062412280/ref=cm_sw_su_dp>. His website is <http://www.randybarnett.com/>. Roderick T. Long is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University; president of the Molinari Institute and Molinari Society; a senior fellow of the Center for a Stateless Society; and cofounder of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left. He received his philosophical training at Harvard (A.B. 1985) and Cornell (Ph.D. 1992), and has taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Michigan. Among his books are Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand (2000) and Wittgenstein, Austrian Economics, and the Logic of Action (forthcoming from Routledge); he is the editor of the Molinari Review and The Industrial Radical, and co-editor of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies and Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country? Roderick describes himself as an Aristotelean/Wittgensteinian in philosophy and a left-libertarian market anarchist in social theory. He blogs at Austro-Athenian Empire <http://aaeblog.com/> and Bleeding Heart Libertarians <http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/> amongst others. He wrote the lead essay for an earlier Liberty Matters discussion (in May 2013) on “Gustave de Molinari’s Legacy for Liberty,” and participated in another (in November 2014) on “Herbert Spencer’s Sociology of the State.” Aeon J. Skoble is professor of philosophy at Bridgewater State University. He is the author of Deleting the State: An Argument about Government (Open Court, 2008), the editor of Reading Rasmussen and Den Uyl: Critical Essays on Norms of Liberty (Lexington Books, 2008), and co-editor of Political Philosophy: Essential Selections (Prentice-Hall, 1999) and Reality, Reason, and Rights (Lexington Books, 2011). Besides his academic work, he has frequently lectured and written for the Institute for Humane Studies and the Foundation for Economic Education, and he is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute. His main research includes theories of rights, the nature and justification of authority, and virtue ethics. In addition, he writes widely on the intersection of philosophy and popular culture, among other things co-editing the best-selling The Simpsons and Philosophy (Open Court, 2000) and three other books on film and television. Matt Zwolinski is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego and co-director of USD’s Institute for Law and Philosophy. His research in political philosophy is split between two main areas of interest. The first focuses on questions regarding the nature, intellectual history, and philosophical defensibility of libertarian political theory. In this area, he has published recently on the implications of libertarian theory for the problem of environmental pollution, a libertarian argument for the moral limits of markets, and the relationship between libertarianism and the welfare state. He is currently finishing work on a book with John Tomasi tentatively titled A Brief History of Libertarianism, which is under contract with Princeton University Press. Professor Zwolinski’s second area of research deals with the nature and moral significance of exploitation for both individual morality and political institutions. He has explored this issue in numerous articles