WHAT IS POLITICAL SLAVERY?


Merely the realization that slavery results from man-made government and man-made law, created by the belief system called statism.
Statism: Mental slavery toward the state. It is the belief that there is such a thing as "authority" vested in certain human beings, magically giving them the "right to rule" over other people; meaning that they, who we call "government," have the "moral right" to issue commands to those whom they rule (those under their "jurisdiction"), and that their "subjects" (slaves) have a "moral obligation" to obey the arbitrary dictates ("laws") set by their masters (slave-holders). Most simply put, statism is the belief in the legitimacy of political slavery.


Modern abolitionists or voluntaryists, including some notable original abolitionists understood the problem with political slavery. It is merely the realization that the existence of government is illegitimate and immoral. It is realizing that the existence in government is that of which has allowed or ever maintained other forms of slavery to begin with.


“Slavery is the complete and absolute subjection of one person to the control and disposal of another person, by legalized force. We need not argue that no person can be, rightfully, compelled to submit to such control and disposal. All such subjection must originate in force; and, private force not being strong enough to accomplish the purpose, public force, in the form of law, must lend its aid. The government comes to the help of the individual slaveholder, and punishes resistance to his will, and compels submission. The government, therefore, in the case of every individual slave, is the real enslaver, depriving each person enslaved of all liberty and all property, and all that makes life dear... For slavery cannot subsist a moment after the support of the public force has been withdrawn.”
- Abolitionist Salmon Chase


“Moral power is putting forth mighty energies to abolish slavery, and elevate four millions of degraded beings to the rank of manhood. It is exerting its multiform influence to regenerate a corrupt public sentiment, and to super-induce a will in the people of the United States to let the oppressed go free. Political power hinders and obstructs the progress of this reform by every possible means. It is wedded to slavery, and will uphold it till a new public opinion compels it to stand off.”
- Abolitionist Adin Ballou


“The tremendous power of the Government is actively wielded to ‘crush out’ the little Anti-Slavery life that remains in individual hearts, and to open new and boundless domains for the expansion of the Slave system.”
“We do not acknowledge allegiance to any human government.”
-William Lloyd Garrison


“Slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations.”
- Stephen A. Douglas


“The pretense that the ‘abolition of slavery’ was either a motive or justification for the war, is a fraud of the same character with that of ‘maintaining the national honor.’ Who, but such usurpers, robbers, and murderers as they, ever established slavery? Or what government, except one resting upon the sword, like the one we now have, was ever capable of maintaining slavery? And why did these men abolish slavery?
- Lawyer and Abolitionist Lysander Spooner


Not from any love of liberty in general —not as an act of justice to the black man himself, but only ‘as a war measure,’ and because they wanted his assistance, and that of his friends, in carrying on the war they had undertaken for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial slavery, to which they have subjected the great body of the people, both white and black. And yet these imposters now cry out that they have abolished the chattel slavery of the black man —although that was not the motive of the war— as if they thought they could thereby conceal, atone for, or justify that other slavery which they were fighting to perpetuate, and to render more rigorous and inexorable than it ever was before. There was no difference of principle—but only of degree— between the slavery they boast they have abolished, and the slavery they were fighting to preserve; for all restraints upon men's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree.”

“These tyrants, living solely on plunder, and on the labor of their slaves, and applying all their energies to the seizure of still more plunder, and the enslavement of still other defenseless persons; increasing, too, their numbers, perfecting their organizations, and multiplying their weapons of war, they extend their conquests until, in order to hold what they have already got, it becomes necessary for them to act systematically, and co-operate with each other in holding their slaves in subjection. But all this they can do only by establishing what they call a government, and making what they call laws. All the great governments of the world- those now existing, as well as those that have passed away- have been of this character. They have been mere bands of robbers, who have associated for purposes of plunder, conquest, and the enslavement of their fellow men.

And their laws, as they have called them, have been only such agreements as they have found it necessary to enter into, in order to maintain their organizations, and act together in plundering and enslaving others, and in securing to each his agreed share of the spoils. All these laws have had no more real obligation than have the agreements which brigands, bandits, and pirates find it necessary to enter into with each other, for the more successful accomplishment of their crimes, and the more peaceable division of their spoils. Thus substantially all the legislation of the world has had its origin in the desires of one class of persons to plunder and enslave others, and hold them as property.”


“The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves.”


"A war carried on, upon one side, for chattel slavery, and on the other for political slavery; upon neither for liberty, justice, or truth. 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"



“Just so long as the individual depends on the government, or the church, to settle the moral law, so long will slavery of every hue exist.”
- Abolitionist Bryan J. Butts


“If the individual has a right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny. Hence the necessity of abolishing the State.”
- 20th Century Abolitionist Benjamin Tucker


“Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”
- U.S Declaration of Independence


“Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments, and, therefore, people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of Governments.”
- 20th Century Abolitionist Leo Tolstoy


“For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery”
- Jonathan Swift


"State slavery is a form of worship”
“The State has taken the place of God”
- Psychologist Carl Jung


"If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable – and this is why we are the enemies of the State.”
- 20th Century Abolitionist Mikhail Bakunin