Preview

Thomas Jefferson's Theory Of Civil Disobedience

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
745 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Thomas Jefferson's Theory Of Civil Disobedience
Does peaceful resistance to laws positively or negatively impact a democracy? Civil disobedience is a form of peaceful political protest in an active opposition to comply with certain laws considered unjust while accepting the consequences. Within the history of the United States of America three instances that support that civil disobedience impacts a free society positively consist of a paper by Harris g. Mirkin known as Rebellion, Revolution, and the Constitution "Thomas Jefferson's theory of civil disobedience", Martin Luther King Jr's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", and a related current event portraying a positive outcome of civil disobedience.
"Thomas Jefferson's theory of civil disobedience" states that the men who proposed the constitution were leaders of the American Revolution and the citizens of the new Republic who had fought in the war absorbed the ideology of revolution. Jefferson the author of the Declaration of
…show more content…
As on July 12, 2016 Corey Menafee a former employee at Yale's Calhoun college shattered a stained glass window depicting African American slaves carrying bales of cotton in a snowy cotton field. Menafee was a janitor at Yale University for years as he would keep his eyes on the floor while he swept the dining hall floors. The school was named after the former vice president John C. Calhoun who advocated for slavery. However over years of protests from African American students due to the windows presence the school refused to remove it. Menafee did not understand why in the 21st century he had to go to work to see that image everyday. He eventually decided to deal with the issue on his own, and shattered the window with a broomstick. His act of civil disobedience costed him his job initially, but was memorable to many as it positively gave the African American population a voice and the notice they desperately needed. Yale stated that it would allow him to return to work on July

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Peaceful resistance to laws does positively impact a free society. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 and the arrest of Rosa Parks on December 1st, 1955 are both great examples of that. The british continuation of placing taxes on tea was the reason the Boston Tea Party first began. Angry colonists chose to dress themselves as Mohawk Indians (to not get recognized as they got on british tea ships) to dump thousands of pounds of tea down the Boston Harbor. Even though they were unfortunately punished after this by the british, it resulted in being one of the main reasons why America wanted independence from Britain and in the end were gladly able to achieve that! This brings me to the next point, Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks was arrested for not approving…

    • 233 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Schultz defines the term Jeffersonian democracy as, “Innovation introduced by Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party when they eagerly cultivated popular opinion by campaigning at the grassroots level” (Schultz, K.M., 2013). Most notably, Thomas Jefferson envisioned a society led by an agrarian upper class, in lieu of big government, that would essentially rule over a society of small independent self-sufficient farmers. But, in a paradoxical manner, Jefferson’s presidency both defined and contradicted his personal philosophies.…

    • 331 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    After the war, people need a new form of government, but there was no agreement on what the future government should be. Thomas Jefferson, one of the towering figure in American policy, believed not only that the basis of policies are from improving the public welfare, but also the freedom of speech and of the press. In this sense, he was a great democrat. He also believed that the public enlightenment should be preceded in order to achieve a true democracy. In other words, he believed that the here and the hereafter of a country prosperity depends upon the extension of national education. He have been called shapers of American…

    • 111 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Case Against Civil Disobedience the unknown author claims in his very first sentence that “the most striking characteristic of civil disobedience is its irrelevance to the problems of today” and that it is “the resort… exercised because the subject cannot or will not take up the rights and duties of the citizen.” What he fails to realize is that the rights and duties of a citizen is to keep an eye on the laws that rule the land and to revolt when those laws become unjust. It’s all part and parcel to the social contract thought up by Locke and heavily leaned upon by Thomas Jefferson. As Henry David Thoreau says in Civil Disobedience, “a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscious.” Civil disobedience can never become irrelevant because corruption will forever attempt to corrode even the best intentions of a government and so there will always be a need to revolt when unjust laws get pasted.…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    All American citizens give up some of their personal liberties for the good of society: it is the basis of the constitution and every law. When citizens feel a law is unjust, they have two options: follow it or fight it. While the usual method of fighting it involves legal challenges or petitioning legislators, civil disobedience has achieved much notoriety after its famed success during the Civil Rights movement. The Framework for a Free Society describes a free society as one in which government “is constrained by the rule of law under which every individual and entity is treated equally.” A free society stresses toleration and respect of differences in belief and culture. Thus, peaceful resistance positively impacts a free society as it…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Thomas Jefferson, the third president and author of the declaration of independence, once exclaimed, “If a law is unjust a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” Jefferson declares that at any cost if one finds a law wrong than it is his duty to stand against it for the common good. He implies that people should never stand idly by or blindly follow a law that is immoral only because it is the easiest way. Knowing when a protest against government is needed was also what the writers Martin Luther King, Henry David Thoreau, and Arthur Miller wanted to instruct to their readers. King was a significant activist and leader of the civil rights movement who was the cause of many amendments and progress for the rights of African Americans. His A Letter From…

    • 1749 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The effectiveness of civil disobedience is that challenging the unjust laws can lead to change, however this can lead to more unjust laws in an attempt to stomp out the party of people that are currently opposing the law. The colonists used petitions and refused to abide by the laws that they believed were unjust. The sheer number of people that were protesting against the laws led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In the article “First Shots of War, 1775” the article narrates “When British soldiers arrived at Lexington the next morning, they found several dozen minutemen waiting for them on the town’s common. Someone fired” (para. 2).…

    • 974 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Civil disobedience as a whole acts as a means of positive change in a free society. The First Amendment of the Constitution stands as a protectant to our freedom of speech and expression. In over words, civil disobedience exists as a product of our rights as an American citizen. Without this peaceful resistance to unjust laws, we would be tied down to regulations that serve to endanger and infringe upon the freedom our founding fathers fought for. Though out history, civil heros such as Henry David Thoreau, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr serve to reflect the positive impact and enhanced freedom brought to life by civil disobedience.…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society because it is exercising the rights of it’s citizens as well as proving that the government is not always correct, and the biggest changes normally come about from civil disobedience. Civil disobedience has been used to speak against the United States government when it showed that those in power wouldn’t change for the better. Civil disobedience was not well known for the abolition of slaves. David Thoreau called for it in “Civil Disobedience,” written in 1849, claiming that the government showed faulty in handling slavery. Thoreau claimed “the government itself… is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it,” (Thoreau par 1).…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thomas Jefferson’s views on revolution and change all stem from the massive significance he places on getting educated. One of the most beneficial things you could do for yourself in terms of self-sufficiency and self-sustainment is acquiring education because it is one of the best tools in ensuring your rights are not infringed by emphatic government. When his views on revolution are concerned, civic education is stressed because that is how enlightenment is achievable. It takes a well-rounded intellectual who is invested in the enterprise of good government. Of course, the author of the Declaration of Independence and proud Father of the University of Virginia would approve and endorse revolution in the right circumstances. In a letter to…

    • 624 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Howard Zinn, American historian, playwright, and social activist, once said, “Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.” He was talking about civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is the refusal to obey certain laws or government demands for the purpose of influencing legislation or government policy, characterized by the employment of such nonviolent techniques as boycotting, picketing, and nonpayment of taxes according to dictionary.com. Two authors write about civil disobedience in their pieces. Martin Luther King Jr., who was a civil rights activist and minister, according to biography.com, wrote Letter to Birmingham Jail. He writes this letter to fellow clergymen while he is in jail about why he is sent to the jail. Henry David Thoreau, who was a philosopher, journalist, and poet, wrote his essay, Civil Disobedience. Thoreau writes this while in jail because he refuses to pay taxes and accepts that he will go to jail for it. At times, civil disobedience is indeed appropriate and justified, given the right circumstances based on morality.…

    • 973 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Philosopher John Locke once wrote that, “No man ...has a power to hand over their preservation...to the absolute will and arbitrary dominion of someone else”. He meant that the inviolable rights of a people are greater than the demands of a government and his words ring true today. In the modern era people can fight “arbitrary dominion” through democratic election, vocal condemnation, and most controversially civil disobedience. The practice of deliberate defiance has netted much criticism for its seeming disregard for a country’s rule of law. Yet, a free society is one in which people have the power to exercise their rights, and in choosing not to follow unjust laws, they only strengthen a country's institutions.…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In 1968, close to 50 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed by an assassin's bullet. He had given us a decade of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience during the civil rights movement of the 1950’s. While the idea of nonviolent protest was still relatively new, MLK hadn’t invented it; he had been one of a few who pioneered the idea and made it popular. The theory of civil disobedience can be traced back to an essay by Henry David Thoreau by the same name. This theory was adopted and popularized by Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and eventually, Martin Luther King, Jr.. In “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau said that if a law “requires you to be the agent of injustice to another,” you should break that law, rather than be unjust to another person.…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Peaceful resistance, historically referred to as “civil disobedience”, is a long-standing American tradition practiced throughout history in times of public turmoil and political fracas. From the opening stages of the United States, to the tergiversate of the civil right movement, civil disobedience continues to take its place in the moral actions of the American people. The right to defend one's unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is an ideal that was both important to the Founding Fathers, and to Americans today. Influential leaders of the world such as John Dickinson, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., along with many others, promoted and demonstrated the benefits and positive affects of peaceful protesting to achieve their goals, as well as establish a legacy and a path for revolution. Likewise, a peaceful…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to the infamous essay by Henry David Thoreau, civil disobedience is the conscious and intentional disobeying of a law to advance a moral principle or change government policy. Throughout the essay, Thoreau urges the need for individuals to put their personal and social consciousness before their allegiance to their government and its range of policies. Thoreau believed that if a government is unjust, citizens should simply refuse to follow the law and eventually begin to distance themselves from their government in a variety of ways. Although published 105 years one of the most turbulent and crucial times in American history, the leaders…

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays