I can think of few days in the calendar more appropriate to read (or re-read) Lysander Spooner’s No Treason VI: The Constitution of No Authority.  A piece of parchment that purports to limit the power of the State; in all times and places they have failed — some more- or less-spectacularly than others — none has ever succeeded for more than a fleeting moment.

It is plain, then, that on general principles of law and reason — such principles as we all act upon in courts of justice and in common life — the Constitution is no contract; that it binds nobody, and never did bind anybody; and that all those who pretend to act by its authority, are really acting without any legitimate authority at all; that, on general principles of law and reason, they are mere usurpers, and that everybody not only has the right, but is morally bound, to treat them as such.