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                                A LETTER

                                   TO

                            GROVER CLEVELAND,

                                   ON

            HIS FALSE INAUGURAL ADDRESS, THE USURPATIONS AND
                CRIMES OF LAWMAKERS AND JUDGES, AND THE
                   CONSEQUENT POVERTY, IGNORANCE, AND
                        SERVITUDE OF THE PEOPLE.


                                   BY
                           LYSANDER SPOONER.


                                BOSTON:
                      BENJ. R. TUCKER, PUBLISHER.
                                 1886.




        The author reserves his copyright in this letter.
        First pamphlet edition published in July, 1886.[1]

    [1] Under a somewhat different title, to wit, "_A Letter to
    Grover Cleveland, on his False, Absurd, If-contradictory, and
    Ridiculous Inaugural Address_," this letter was first published,
    in instalments, "LIBERTY" (a paper published in Boston); the
    instalments commencing June 20, 1885, and continuing to May 22,
    1886: notice being given, in each paper, of the reservation of
    copyright.




                     A LETTER TO GROVER CLEVELAND.

                               SECTION I.

_To Grover Cleveland_:

SIR,--Your inaugural address is probably as honest, sensible, and
consistent a one as that of any president within the last fifty years,
or, perhaps, as any since the foundation of the government. If,
therefore, it is false, absurd, self-contradictory, and ridiculous, it
is not (as I think) because you are personally less honest, sensible, or
consistent than your predecessors, but because the government
itself--according to your own description of it, and according to the
practical administration of it for nearly a hundred years--is an utterly
and palpably false, absurd, and criminal one. Such praises as you bestow
upon it are, therefore, necessarily false, absurd, and ridiculous.

Thus you describe it as "a government pledged to do equal and exact
justice to all men."

Did you stop to think what that means? Evidently you did not; for
nearly, or quite, all the rest of your address is in direct
contradiction to it.

Let me then remind you that justice is an immutable, natural principle;
and not anything that can be made, unmade, or altered by any human
power.

It is also a subject of science, and is to be learned, like mathematics,
or any other science. It does not derive its authority from the
commands, will, pleasure, or discretion of any possible combination of
men, whether calling themselves a government, or by