I begin with a short selection from the Seneca Falls Declaration, which we looked a couple of weeks ago. The assertion is strong: A law which is contrary to natural law has no force or authority. In other words, one has no duty to obey it. Henry David Thoreau writes his essay shortly after the publication of the Seneca Falls Declaration. We have no direct evidence that he was aware of the declaration, but we can see some relationship. If a law has no force then one has no duty to obey it. Thoreau makes an even stronger assertion: Under certain circumstances disobeying the law may be a duty. We’re going to examine that idea today. We’re also going to examine a short document which may have influenced both Thoreau and the framers of the Seneca Falls Declaration.
As we noted, the signers of The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, stated that laws which contradicted the spirit of the Declaration of Independence were laws “without force,” which implies that those who ignore or violate them should be able to do so without penalty. The argument sprang from a core democratic belief: those who live under the law have a right to participate in its creation. Women, not possessing the suffrage, should not be held accountable to a system of laws created by men in their own self interest..
Thoreau cannot claim that exemption. He was a member of the privileged elite, and moved in the social circle of some of the United States’ most famous literary and political figures, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. But Thoreau, too, is put in a position where obeying the law violates his personal conscience. If a democratic society requires a person to violate his conscience, what is the person to do? On the Duty of Civil Disobedience presents Thoreau’s answer to this question.
Civil Disobedience remained a powerful essay throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Click Thoreau's Picture to find many fascinating analyses of it and its relevance worldwide. (The website goes down occasionally, so don't give up.)
Thoreau makes much use of the rhetorical question, a favorite device of debaters everywhere, wether the debate proceeds in print or aloud. We will look at Lincoln using this device in the document for Thursday. The questioner already knows the answer before he or she pens the question. The question allows the questioner to frame the issue in a way which makes his or her point of view more persuasive. Here are some of Thoreau’s rhetorical questions. We’ll use them to discuss his reasoning. Use your sticky notes to indicate how you might answer the questions.
There are many other questions of this kind. Locate a few others for us to discuss, noting where they are in the margins of your document.
RESOLVED, That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or authority.
Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?--in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator?
Why has every man a conscience then?
How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also.
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
Why does it always crucify Christ and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?
We’re going to look at Thoreau’s view of civil disobedience in two ways. The first is represented by the kinds of questions listed above. We might call it the philosophical or theoretical perspective.
The second might be called the tactical. To understand this, locate the section where Thoreau introduces the idea of the clog. It also explains why Thoreau, unlike the Seneca Falls Women, felt it a duty to go to jail (Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.) We'll trace this idea back in history, later.
I include the William Lloyd Garrison’s essay of 1832 from The Liberator, largely to show that there were precedents for the arguments made by both Thoreau and the women and men at Seneca Falls. In fact, by comparison, the latter documents are a little tame. Thoreau and The Seneca Falls Declarations speak to the problem of unjust laws. Garrison raises the stakes. What is one to do if the very foundation of law itself is unjust?
It won’t take you long to uncover his answer. It may take you longer to decide whether you agree or disagree with him.
William Lloyd Garrison founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, click on his image to the left to visit the web site of the modern American Anti-Slavery Group. Slavery as an institution isn't extinct by any means. you might want to see what you can do to help the fight against it.
Abraham Lincoln’s political career had its ups and downs. He had been elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, he was defeated for reelection for opposing war with Mexico, which he saw as an attempt to extend territory open to slavery. He remained an ardent “free-soiler,” and in 1858 he ran for the United States Senate against the incumbent Stephen A. Douglas. In those days, Senators were not elected directly, as they are now, but rather were elected by the state legislatures. Nonetheless, candidates campaigned around the state, hoping to arouse local voters to either elect representatives favorable to their cause, or to get those local voters to influence their representatives to support their candidacy. Prior to this election, Lincoln and Douglas conducted a series of debates on the Kansas Nebraska Act which aroused national attention. This speech was part in 1854 of that series. (Lincoln may have won the debates, but he lost the election). In the 19th century people loved long debates. Our attention spans are shorter now, but if you want to give a try,the complete text is here.
Abraham Lincoln uses and old debater's trick: the forced choice question. The opponent in the debate is asked to answer yes or no to a question, and either answer leads to a logical conclusion which traps him in a position demolishing his principal arguments. Find the "Force Choice". While the forced choice is all over this speech, you find the most direct expression of it at the bottom of page 2. Why would Douglas and his supporters hate to answer either yes or no to this deceptively simple question. Add a Sticky Note, suggesting which way you would answer this forced choice question. For one of the hidden implications of this forced choice, consult the United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 2.
Work on Amendments 13, 14, and 15 to the Constitution, These amendments ended slavery in the United States and began to define the rights and privileges of the former slaves. Hopefully, if we have time, we'll come back to these as interpreted by the winning and losing sides of the landmark case, Plessy v. Fergusson.
The cartoon above is British and first appeared in the magazine, Punch. The images indicate the unpopularity of Abraham Lincoln among those who saw blacks as his "evil genius". The cartoon appeared in 1863, nine years after the Speech at Peoria.
History and the Modern World
