Lysander Spooner in the context of "Pamphleteer"

In the United States, libertarianism is a political philosophy promoting individual liberty. Libertarianism has been described as laissez-faire on economic issues while supporting civil liberties and personal freedom. The movement is often associated with a foreign policy of non-interventionism. Broadly, there are four principal traditions within libertarianism, namely the libertarianism that developed in the mid-20th century out of the revival tradition of classical liberalism in the United States after liberalism associated with the New Deal; the libertarianism developed in the 1950s by anarcho-capitalist author Murray Rothbard, who based it on the anti-New Deal Old Right and 19th-century libertarianism and American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner while rejecting the labor theory of value in favor of Austrian School economics and the subjective theory of value; the libertarianism developed in the 1970s by Robert Nozick and founded in American and European classical liberal traditions; and the libertarianism associated with the Libertarian Party, which was founded in 1971, including politicians such as David Nolan and Ron Paul.

The right-libertarianism associated with people such as Murray Rothbard and Robert Nozick, whose book Anarchy, State, and Utopia received significant attention in academia according to David Lewis Schaefer, is the dominant form of libertarianism in the United States, compared to that of left-libertarianism. The latter is associated with the left-wing of the modern libertarian movement and more recently to the political positions associated with academic philosophers Hillel Steiner, Philippe Van Parijs and Peter Vallentyne that combine self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources; it is also related to anti-capitalist, free-market anarchist strands such as left-wing market anarchism, referred to as market-oriented left-libertarianism to distinguish itself from other forms of libertarianism.

Anarcho-capitalism (colloquially: ancap or an-cap) is a political philosophy and economic theory that advocates for the abolition of centralized states in favor of stateless societies where systems of private property are enforced by private agencies. Anarcho-capitalists argue that a society can function without a state through voluntary exchange and private institutions that provide law and security. This would result in a voluntary society based on concepts such as the non-aggression principle, free markets, and self-ownership. In the absence of statute, private defence agencies and/or insurance companies would operate competitively in a market and fulfill the roles of courts and the police, similar to a state apparatus.

According to its proponents, various historical theorists have espoused philosophies similar to anarcho-capitalism. While the earliest existing attestation of "anarchocapitalism" [sic] is in Karl Hess's essay "The Death of Politics" published by Playboy in March 1969, American economist Murray Rothbard was credited with coining the terms anarcho-capitalist and anarcho-capitalism in 1971. A leading figure in the 20th-century American libertarian movement, Rothbard synthesized elements from the Austrian School, classical liberalism and 19th-century American individualist anarchists and mutualists Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker, while rejecting the labour theory of value. Rothbard's anarcho-capitalist society would operate under a mutually agreed-upon "legal code which would be generally accepted, and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow". This legal code would recognize contracts between individuals, private property, self-ownership and tort law in keeping with the non-aggression principle. Unlike a state, enforcement measures in Rothbard’s version of an anarcho-capitalist society would only apply to those who initiated force or fraud. Rothbard views the power of the state as unjustified, arguing that it violates individual rights, reduces prosperity, and creates social and economic problems.

Individualist anarchism in the United States was strongly influenced by Benjamin Tucker, Josiah Warren, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lysander Spooner, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Max Stirner, Herbert Spencer and Henry David Thoreau. Other important individualist anarchists in the United States were Stephen Pearl Andrews, William Batchelder Greene, Ezra Heywood, M. E. Lazarus, John Beverley Robinson, James L. Walker, Joseph Labadie, Steven Byington and Laurance Labadie.

The first American anarchist publication was The Peaceful Revolutionist, edited by Warren, whose earliest experiments and writings predate Proudhon. According to historian James J. Martin, the individualist anarchists were socialists, whose support for the labor theory of value made their libertarian socialist form of mutualism a free-market socialist alternative to both capitalism and Marxism.

Anarcho-capitalism (colloquially: ancap or an-cap) is a political philosophy and economic theory that advocates for the abolition of centralized states in favour of stateless societies where systems of private property are enforced by private agencies. Anarcho-capitalists argue that a society can function without a state through voluntary exchange and private institutions that provide law and security. This would result in a voluntary society, based on concepts such as the non-aggression principle, free markets, and self-ownership. In the absence of statute, private defence agencies and/or insurance companies would operate competitively in a market, and fulfil the roles of courts and the police, similar to a state apparatus.

According to its proponents, various historical theorists have espoused philosophies similar to anarcho-capitalism. While the earliest existing attestation of "anarchocapitalism" [sic] is in Karl Hess's essay "The Death of Politics", published by Playboy in March 1969, American economist Murray Rothbard was credited with coining the terms anarcho-capitalist and anarcho-capitalism in 1971. A leading figure in the 20th-century American libertarian movement, Rothbard synthesized elements from the Austrian school, classical liberalism, 19th-century American individualist anarchists, mutualists Lysander Spooner, and Benjamin Tucker, while rejecting the labour theory of value. Rothbard's anarcho-capitalist society would operate under a mutually agreed-upon "legal code which would be generally accepted, and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow". This legal code would recognize contracts between individuals, private property, self-ownership, and tort law, in keeping with the non-aggression principle. Unlike a state, enforcement measures in Rothbard’s version of an anarcho-capitalist society would only apply to those who initiated force or fraud. Rothbard views the power of the state as unjustified, arguing that it violates individual rights, reduces prosperity, and creates social and economic problems.

Anarcho-capitalism (colloquially: ancap or an-cap) is a political philosophy and economic theory that advocates for the abolition of centralized states in favor of stateless societies in which systems of private property are enforced by private agencies. Anarcho-capitalists argue that a society can function without a state through voluntary exchange and private institutions that provide law and security. This would result in a voluntary society, based on concepts such as the non-aggression principle, free markets, and self-ownership. In the absence of statute, private defense agencies and/or insurance companies would operate competitively in a market, and fulfil the roles of courts and the police, similar to a state apparatus.

According to its proponents, various historical theorists have espoused philosophies similar to anarcho-capitalism. While the earliest existing attestation of anarcho-capitalism is in Karl Hess's essay "The Death of Politics", published by Playboy in March of 1969, American economist Murray Rothbard was credited with coining the terms anarcho-capitalist and anarcho-capitalism in 1971. A leading figure in 20th-century American libertarian movement, Rothbard synthesized elements from the Austrian school, classical liberalism, 19th-century American individualist anarchists, mutualists Lysander Spooner, and Benjamin Tucker, while rejecting the labor theory of value. Rothbard's anarcho-capitalist society would operate under a mutually agreed-upon "legal code which would be generally accepted, and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow". This legal code would recognize contracts between individuals, private property, self-ownership, and tort law, in keeping with the non-aggression principle. Unlike a state, enforcement measures in Rothbard’s version of an anarcho-capitalist society would only apply to those who initiated force or fraud. Rothbard views the power of the state as unjustified, arguing that it violates individual rights, reduces prosperity, and creates social and economic problems.

The Unconstitutionality of Slavery is an 1845 abolitionist essay written by the American abolitionist Lysander Spooner. In it, Spooner responds to Garrisonian abolitionists and proslavery theorists who argued that slavery was supported by the United States Constitution. Spooner claims that slavery is unconstitutional and cites natural law, colonial charters, and American founding documents to argue that there is no legal basis for the existence of slavery in the United States and that Congress is obligated to prohibit it.

Spooner was an anarchist who argued that the authority of the courts was derived from fundamental principles of justice and universal human rights. He cites the precedent established in Somerset v Stewart that slavery is incompatible with liberty and cannot exist absent positive legal sanction. Spooner notes that contrary to this principle, the Articles of Confederation, the several state constitutions, and the 1787 federal constitution do not refer to slavery directly; the Declaration of Independence, meanwhile, implicitly proscribes slavery by recognizing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as self-evident natural rights. Spooner rejects appeals to original intent concerning the historical context for constitutional provisions generally understood to address slavery, arguing that laws must be interpreted according to the ordinary meaning of the text. He concludes that there is no legal basis for slavery in the United States and that the Guarantee Clause requires Congress to enforce emancipation.