Morality of the Law
Civil disobedience is the resistance to unjust laws. Henry David Thoreau sparked this revelation when he wrote “Civil Disobedience.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used many of the ideas of Thoreau to expand on the ideas of civil disobedience when he wrote “Letter From Birmingham City Jail.” Henry David Thoreau and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. both used civil disobedience as a way to improve the law and require society to abide by higher morals, but in today’s society civil disobedience is used solely to change unjust laws while society lowers their moral standards to that of the law.Thoreau wrote “Civil Disobedience” in response to the American involvement in the Mexican War as well as the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. He viewed them both as immoral and wrong and he believed that if the law “is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law” (Thoreau). Thoreau felt this “agent of injustice” to be America against Mexico in the Mexican War, as well as the slaveholder against his or her slaves by the Fugitive Slave Act. He went so far as to reject the United States government as his government by saying “I cannot for an instance recognize t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1210
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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