Those animals which are incapable of making binding agreements with one another not to inflict nor suffer harm are without either justice or injustice; and likewise for those peoples who either could not or would not form binding agreements not to inflict nor suffer harm.
On March 2, 1793, Sam Houston was born.
On March 2, 1926, American economist and political theorist Murray N. Rothbard was born.
As President of the Republic of Texas, Houston (pictured above) cut the size of the Republic’s budget by a whopping amount, including selling the navy for scrap. Rothbard theorized about even more daring — and more permanent — cuts to (and limits upon) government.
On March 2, 1781, the Second Continental Congress convened as the new Congress of the Confederation, under the Articles of Confederation, ratified the day before. The congress elected no new president upon adoption of the Articles. This Confederation Congress oversaw the conclusion of the American Revolution.
The monopolist . . . never has unlimited control; he merely has the choice within the laws of price of different ‘economically possible’ price levels. He can select that price at which the combination of profit for each article, and the number of articles to be sold at that price, are likely to promise the greatest total profit, but he cannot exert his ‘power’ in any other way than in conformity with the laws of price, for it is his behavior that establishes the ‘price law,’ namely the conditions of the amount offered at a given price level, but never can he counteract the laws of price.
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, “Control or Economic Law,” Zeitschrift für Volkswirtshaft, Sozialpolitik und Verwaltung, Volume XXIII (1914): 205–71; John Richard Mez, Ph.D., translator.
March 1st Firsts (and a 17th and a 37th):
| The first United States census was authorized, in 1790.
| Ohio was admitted as the 17th U.S. state, in 1803.
| President John Tyler [pictured above] signed a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas, in 1845.
| The state of Michigan formally abolished capital punishment, 1847.
| Nebraska became the 37th of the United States, in 1867.
| Yellowstone National Park was established as the world’s first national park, 1872.
On March 1, 1781, the Continental Congress of the United States adopted the Articles of Confederation. With this, the governing body became known, officially, as United States of America in Congress Assembled, more commonly as the Congress of the Confederation. The first session of this newly styled Confederation Congress took over without a break from the Second Continental Congress, adjourning on November 3. Samuel Huntington and Thomas McKean served as presidents during this first session.
The just person enjoys the greatest peace of mind, while the unjust is full of the utmost disquietude.
Epicurus, Principal Doctrines, 17
“Scientific method consists in applying to those subjects which lie without the range of our immediate experience those same common-sense methods of reasoning which successful men of the world apply in judging of matters which concern their own interests.”
Simon Newcomb, Principles of Political Economy, 1886, chapter III, “Of Scientific Method”
On February 28, 1646, Roger Scott, of Lynn, Massachusetts, was tried for sleeping in church. Awakened in church by a tithingman’s long, knobbed staff hitting him on the head, he struck back at the man, and garnered a whipping as punishment, as well as the dark designation as “a common sleeper at the publick exercise.”
On February 27, 1830, American economist and free trade advocate Arthur Latham Perry was born.
The Twenty-second Amendment (Amendment XXII) of the United States Constitution, which sets a term limit for election and overall time of service to the office of President of the United States, was ratified by the requisite 36 of the then-48 states on February 27, 1951.
Congress had passed the amendment on March 21, 1947.
[T]hrift is never popular. . . . If parliaments have historically been the guardians of thrift, they now have turned much rather into its sworn enemies. Nowadays, the political and national parties — maybe not exclusively in our own country, but certainly also here — tend to develop a certain covetousness, almost considered to be dutiful, for all kinds of benefits for their own electorate at the expense of the general public.
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, as quoted by Ludwig von Mises, “The Economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk” (Neue Freie Presse, Vienna, August 27, 1924) — described by Mises as “the last words that Böhm-Bawerk addressed to Austria’s financial authorities.”
It is up to the government to keep the government’s secrets.
Bob Novak was born on February 26, 1931. He died in 2009.