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Spooner Biographical Information


Born: January 19, 1808
Died: May 17, 1887


Revolution

Lysander Spooner Page
(contains links to each chapter of Charles Shively's biography,
The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner

Obituary from the Boston Daily Globe


Chronology of Spooner's Life

Lysander Spooner: January 19, 1808-May 17, 1887

1808

    Lysander Spooner born as the second of nine children near Athol, Massachusetts

1824-1833

    Spooner is apprenticed to his father and therefore must work on the family farm.

1833

    Spooner begins studying law under John Davis and Charles Allen.

1834

    The Deist's Immortality and An Essay on Man's Accountability for his Belief are published.

1835

    Spooner tests the law requiring law students to study for 3-5 years under an established lawyer by priting up business cards, as well as sending a petition asking for this law to be revoked to the WorchesterRepublican. As a result, the law is revoked the following year.

1836

    A Deist's Reply to the Alleged Supernatural Evidences of Christianity is published

    Spooner's law practice declines as a result of his radical treatises about religion. Spooner works as a bank clerk for a few months in order to make enough money to go to the American West.

1837

    Spooner buys 80 acres on the Maumee Rapids, comprising the city of Gilead (Grand Rapids).

    The government makes plans to build a dam on the Maumee, which would exclude Spooner's land from a canal being built. Spooner sues, claiming it is unconstitutional for the government to build a dam.He receives an injunction against the building of the dam while the court considers the case

1839

    The injunction, as well as Spooner's case, is dismissed altogether.

1840

    Spooner returns to his father's farm in Massachusetts. He begins analyzing the Panic of 1837, and delivers his discoveries to the Palladium of Worchester

1843

    Spooner publishes Constitutional Law Relative to Credit, Currency, and Banking

1844

    Spooner writes a letter to the Postmaster General, informing him that he intends to start his own mail company and use it to distribute his own literature (this was illegal). He includes a pamphlet entitled The Unconstitutionality of the Laws in Congress Prohibiting Private Mails. He advertises in all major newspapers and prints his own stamps for the purpose of distributing his pamphlet. The government responds by arresting those who carry the letters and threatening transportation companies with the loss of government contracts if they carried Spooner's mail.

    Spooner writes to Gerrit Smith to get support for a work he is writing about the unconstitutionality of slavery. Smith gives him financial support, as well as encouraging Spooner's efforts.

1845

    Spooner publishes the first edition of The Unconstitutionality of Slavery

1846

    Spooner publishes Poverty, Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cure

1849

    Spooner writes Who Caused the Reduction of Postage in 1845? and distributes it to the five largest merchants in Boston, who ignore him. He therefore has to raise money on his own to publish the pamphlet.

1850-55

Spooner meets, courts and becomes engaged to a schoolteacher named Mary Booth. In 1855, she breaks off the engagement. Spooner later learned, through a mutal acquaintance, that Booth was interested in him only because she needed a place to live; when she found other means of securing a home, she lost interest. As a result, Spooner becamse seriously depressed and did not finish writing The Law of Intellectual Property

1850

    Spooner is able to publish Who Caused the Reduction of Postage in 1845?It has no impact whatsoever and Spooner begins to become discouraged.

    Spooner publishes Defence For Fugitive Slaves

1852

    Spooner publishes Trial By Jury outlining the rights of people against the government.

1855

    Spooner attempts to protect the rights of those using their own minds to make a living with The Law of Intellectual Property, an attack on the current copyright laws. This work is never finished due to financial problems.

1856

    Spooner receives a patent from the government for his Improvement In Elastic Bottomed Chairs

1858

    Spooner outlines a plan for abolishing slavery which involves both the North and the South setting up guerilla forces that would attack and rob slaveowners. It is not published because John Brown was afraid it would give away his plan to attack the South.

1861

    Spooner publishes New System of Paper Currency, suggesting a new method of banking that does not involve the government

1863

    Spooner organizes the Spooner Copyright Company for the purpose of seeling other his idea for a new type of government-free bank. He finds no customers.

1864

    Spooner publishes an analysis of the Civil War, A Letter to Charles Sumner claiming that if the United States had truly been a free country, the war would have been avoided altogether--he does not believe that the issue was the union, but mrerely that of slavery.

1867

    Spooner begins working on his No Treason pamphlets, the first of which is published this year. The second one will be published in 1870.

1877-78

     Spooner works with Benjamin Tucker on putting out a magazine called Radical Review, which is the precursor to Liberty

1887

    Spooner dies of rheumatic fever.

ANARCHY ARCHIVES

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