# Chapter XVI explained — No Treason

> Chapter companion for No Treason by Lysander Spooner.

## What happens

The chapter argues that treaties made by U.S. officials with foreign nations are invalid because neither the officials nor the foreign nations have legitimate authority from their respective peoples. It contends that there is no authentic evidence that the people of the United States authorized these officials, nor that foreign peoples authorized their rulers, making such treaties as fictitious as a treaty with the Man in the Moon.

## Themes in this chapter

### Consent and Voluntary Government

The chapter emphasizes that treaties lack validity because there is no open, written evidence of consent from the people.

### Secret Government and Secret Ballot

The argument implies that government officials operate without authentic, open authorization from the governed, akin to a secret government.

### Individual Natural Rights

The chapter asserts that individuals cannot be bound by treaties made without their personal, voluntary consent.

## Character check-ins

### a man

The individual who is supposedly bound by treaties made without his consent.

### Unknown

The narrator or speaker presenting the argument.

### Congress

Implicitly referenced as the body that appoints ambassadors and senators.

### any member of Congress

Those who claim to act as agents for the people but lack authentic authorization.

## Key lines

> On general principles of law and reason, the treaties, so called, which purport to be entered into with other nations, by certain persons calling themselves ambassadors, secretaries, presidents, and senators of the United States, in the name, and on behalf, of 'the people of the United States,' are of no validity.

According to basic legal and rational principles, the so-called treaties made by U.S. officials claiming to represent the American people are completely invalid.

_The author denies the legitimacy of treaties due to lack of proven authorization._

> Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades.

Thus, our supposed treaties are as meaningless as a fictional agreement between the Man in the Moon and the king of the Pleiades.

_The author uses a hyperbolic analogy to emphasize the treaties' complete lack of legal force._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/no_treason_se/chapters/xvi
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/no_treason_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/no_treason_se/chapters