Argumentative Essay Fredrick Douglass
"You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This certainly is a legitimate concern...I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws...How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.... I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong."
In this excerpt, Dr. King expresses the possible concerns of the clergymen. He refutes their statements in which they accuse him of doing an injustice, and further explains his standpoint as an advocate for equality. I agree with his standpoint in this letter, and concur with his statements displaying unfairness in the policies of the clergymen. Through the use of ethos and logos, Martin Luther King compiles an argument rejecting the attacks of the clergymen, countering the burden on their shoulders. I support Martin Luther King Jr.’s claim concerning the hypocrisy of the clergymen. The clergymen attempt to bring up a point concerning the injustice of blacks’ willingness to break laws. This is a hypocritical statement because the racism and social degradation of blacks is just as wrong. Although it is wrong to break laws, arguing a point of anti-segregation is not harmful in a any way. Through counter argument, Martian Luther King asks a question that a clergyman may ponder, “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” He then dismisses any viewpoint that the clergy may have on this subject, by justifying what employs a law to be either just or unjust. Dr. King, as a black individual, displays ethos by providing some backing to his argument as a member of the group being discriminated against. If a law is unjust, the group that is suffering has every right to question and challenge it. Especially in this case, in the efforts to try to gain equality for all races, it is imperative that
In this excerpt, Dr. King expresses the possible concerns of the clergymen. He refutes their statements in which they accuse him of doing an injustice, and further explains his standpoint as an advocate for equality. I agree with his standpoint in this letter, and concur with his statements displaying unfairness in the policies of the clergymen. Through the use of ethos and logos, Martin Luther King compiles an argument rejecting the attacks of the clergymen, countering the burden on their shoulders. I support Martin Luther King Jr.’s claim concerning the hypocrisy of the clergymen. The clergymen attempt to bring up a point concerning the injustice of blacks’ willingness to break laws. This is a hypocritical statement because the racism and social degradation of blacks is just as wrong. Although it is wrong to break laws, arguing a point of anti-segregation is not harmful in a any way. Through counter argument, Martian Luther King asks a question that a clergyman may ponder, “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” He then dismisses any viewpoint that the clergy may have on this subject, by justifying what employs a law to be either just or unjust. Dr. King, as a black individual, displays ethos by providing some backing to his argument as a member of the group being discriminated against. If a law is unjust, the group that is suffering has every right to question and challenge it. Especially in this case, in the efforts to try to gain equality for all races, it is imperative that