Title page from The Shorter Works and Pamphlets of Lysander Spooner, Vol. 2 (1862-1884)

Part of: The Shorter Works and Pamphlets of Lysander Spooner, 2 vols. (1834-1884) The Shorter Works and Pamphlets of Lysander Spooner, Vol. 2 (1862-1884)

This is a compilation of Spooner’s shorter works and pamphlets. Vol. 2 contains works on money and banking, copyright, law, and political philosophy, which were published between 1861 and 1884. The essay “Vices are not Crimes” (1875) first appeared anonymously in Prohibition a Failure: or, The True Solution of the Temperance Question, ed. Dio Lewis (Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1875).

Key Quotes

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VICES are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another. Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no…