No Treason · Chapter
The Treason Swindle and the War for Slavery explained
This chapter argues that the U.S.
What happens
This chapter argues that the U.S. Constitution was treated by administrators as a meaningless document, designed by swindlers to entrap the people into a government of the powerful over the weak. The most flagitious of these swindles is the treason charge, which enables the government to arbitrarily accuse, shoot, and hang those who refuse total submission. This has led to governments practicing every crime, culminating in a war that cost a million lives—fought on one side for chattel slavery and on the other for political slavery, neither for liberty, justice, or truth—by the descendants of men who once declared all men equal and owed no allegiance without consent.
Themes in this chapter
Constitution as Dead Contract
The Constitution is treated as a meaningless document, written by swindlers, and its written provisions are ignored in favor of fraudulent intentions.
Treason as Breach of Faith
The treason charge is the most flagitious swindle, used to arbitrarily accuse and execute those who refuse submission, enabling all other oppressions.
Characters to notice
- a man
The individual who is at risk of being accused, shot, and hanged as a traitor for refusing to surrender to arbitrary will.
- these men
The swindlers who designed the Constitution with false pretenses of consent, intending to entrap the people into a government of the powerful.
- Congress
The governing body that administers the government and assumes the swindling intentions of the Constitution's authors.
Key passages
“The practical difficulty with our government has been, that most of those who have administered it, have taken it for granted that the Constitution, as it is written was a thing of no importance; that it neither said what it meant, nor meant what it said; that it was gotten up by swindlers, (as many of its authors doubtless were,) who said a great many good things, which they did not mean, and meant a great many bad things, which they dared not say; that these men, under the false pretence of a government resting on the consent of the whole people, designed to entrap them into a government of a part, who should be powerful and fraudulent enough to cheat the weaker portion out of all the good things that were said, but not meant, and subject them to all the bad things that were meant, but not said.”
The main problem with our government is that most administrators have assumed the written Constitution is meaningless—that it was created by swindlers who said good things they didn't mean and meant bad things they didn't say, using the pretense of consent to trap people into a government where the powerful cheat the weak.
This passage critiques the disregard for the Constitution and the fraudulent intentions of its authors.
“A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases.”
A government that can arbitrarily label people traitors and execute them for refusing total submission can commit any oppression it chooses.
This highlights the danger of the treason charge as a tool for unlimited government power.
“And these crimes have been committed, and this war waged, by men, and the descendants of men, who, less than a hundred years ago, said that all men were equal, and could owe neither service to individuals, nor allegiance to governments, except with their own consent.”
These crimes and the war were carried out by the descendants of those who, less than a century earlier, declared all men equal and that allegiance requires individual consent.
This underscores the hypocrisy of fighting a war for slavery while claiming to uphold liberty and consent.