Lysander Spooner on the Late Unpleasantness

"The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply
this:
That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a
government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part,
makes them traitors and criminals.

No principle, that is possible to be
named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more
self-evidently fatal to all political freedom.

Yet it triumphed in the
field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be
established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by
the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a
government that he does not want, is a slave.

And there is no
difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political
and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's
ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that
other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their
uses, and at their pleasure."

-- Lysander Spooner, 19th century lawyer, abolitionist, and entrepreneur

Via SHNV