Editing Lysander Spooner (section)

===Abolitionism===
Spooner attained his highest profile as a figure in the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist movement]]. His book ''[[The Unconstitutionality of Slavery]]'', published in 1845, contributed to a controversy among abolitionists over whether the [[United States Constitution|Constitution]] supported the institution of [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]]. The disunionist faction led by [[William Lloyd Garrison]] and [[Wendell Phillips]] argued that the Constitution legally recognized and enforced the oppression of slaves as in the provisions for the capture of fugitive slaves in [[Article Four of the United States Constitution#Clause 2: Extradition of fugitives|Article IV, Section 2]].<ref name="Barnett 2011">{{cite journal|last=Barnett|first=Randy E.|author-link=Randy Barnett|title=Whence Comes Section One? The Abolitionist Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment|url=https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1475&context=facpub|date=2011|journal=Journal of Legal Analysis|volume=3|issue=1|issn=1946-5319|doi=10.1093/jla/3.1.165|oclc=8092556588|pages=165–263|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Spooner challenged the claim that the text of the Constitution permitted slavery.{{Sfn|Shively|1971|loc=Chapter 5}} He used a complex system of legal and natural law arguments to show that the Constitutional clauses usually interpreted as adopting or at least accepting implicitly the practice of slavery did not in fact support it, despite the open tolerance of human servitude under the original Constitution of 1789; even though those interpretations would only be superseded by the amendments to the Constitution passed after the [[American Civil War]], viz. Amendments XIII-XV, prohibiting the states from enabling or enforcing slavery.{{Sfn|Shively|1971|loc=Chapter 5}}

From the publication of this book until 1861, when the Civil War overtook society, Spooner actively campaigned against slavery.{{Sfn|Shively|1971|loc=Chapter 5}} Spooner viewed the [[Northern United States|Northern states]] as trying to deny the [[Southern United States|Southerners]] through military force.{{Sfn|Smith|1992|p=xvii}}