Spooner Biographical Information
Born: January 19, 1808
Died: May 17, 1887
Lysander Spooner Page
(contains links to each chapter of Charles Shively's biography,
The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner
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.
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