Majority rule and power
When looking at the writings of Martin Luther King Jr. in, A Letter From a Birmingham Jail and Henry David Thoreau in Civil Disobedience, one finds that each man takes a somewhat different approach to delivering a message, but the messages are in fact similar, as both call for a drastic change to majority rule. Both men share the desire for universal justice and they feel majority rule prevents this, as too small of a number of individuals can make unjust laws that affect a large portion of the population. Majority and minority are two terms that King and Thoreau use in their writing's, but their definition of each differs slightly. King sees himself as a part of a minority in the fact that, him being black prevents him from having equal rights under the laws of the United States of America. Thoreau sees himself as a minority because he does not have a say as to the actions of the United States government that is suppose to represent him and he is supposed to support. Both men call for action and use themselves as a model for how to take action. The motive for both Thoreau's and King's writing is based on race and how the United States government does not represent all of its' citizens. The
Thoreau believes that a person should assume all consequences under the law if they are to revolt and that this will hopefully lead to change. He preaches direct revolt against the government and its' practices, "You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws. I would agree with Saint Augustine "An unjust law is no law at all". "After all, the practical reason, why when the power is once in of the people, a majority is permitted, and for a long period allowed to continue to rule, is not the hands because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest." (Thoreau, page 1)
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1879
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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