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LITR 4328: American Renaissance  |
Final Exam Essays 2015 Sample answers
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Heidi
Kreeger
5/12/15
Essay
A2 – Responsible Resistance and Disobedience
Our course website describes civil disobedience and passive resistance as
the decision of a group or individual to obey a “higher law” over the “law of
the state”. With that choice often comes with a willingness to be jailed as a
form of protest, and a willingness to reduce social pressure by voluntary
simplicity. The most important factor, however, is the fact that those who
oppose the law of the state do so in a non-violent manner, which maintains their
moral high ground. Many periods in history have needed and experienced such
disobedience, including the period in America known as the American Renaissance.
Evidence of the passive resistance that took place during the American
Renaissance can be seen in the laws that were made during this time, but can
also be seen in the relevant literature that was published within the same time
period. Perhaps the most relevant of these texts was written by Henry David
Thoreau in 1849 and it is entitled “Resistance
to Civil Government”. Within
the text Thoreau expresses his opinion that American government has not lived up
to its’ potential, saying, “I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a
better government” (Paragraph 4). He touches on and perhaps even creates many of
the principles of civil disobedience. One of the best examples of this is in the
seventh paragraph in which he states that “the mass of men serve the state thus,
not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies…a very few – as heroes,
patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men – serve the state with
their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part”. This
refers to the principle of civil disobedience that there are higher laws than
those imposed by men and that there is a difference between just laws and unjust
laws.
Thoreau also addresses how powerful and righteous being imprisoned can be
in a passive resistance situation. In paragraph nineteen he states that “Under a
government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a
prison.” This principle was obviously taken to heart by many non-violent leaders
that would follow him, including Martin Luther King, Jr. In King’s “Letter From
Birmingham City Jail” he sits imprisoned and writes that “One
may well 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”.
The concept of a higher law and breaking laws for the greater good can
also be seen in “Reminiscences” by Levi Coffin. Coffin was a leader in the
Underground Railroad movement and expressed that during many of the
conversations he had with the former slaves,
“I found that they
were afraid of the penalty of the law. I told them that I read in the Bible when
I was a boy that it was right to take in the stranger and administer to those in
distress, and that I thought it was always safe to do right. The
Bible, in bidding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, said nothing about
color, and I should try to follow out the teachings of that good book.”
Again we see in retrospect, the importance of civil disobedience. Coffin also
demonstrated the need to stand up for what is right without using violence. It
may have been an easier decision in this case, as secrecy was preferred over
confrontation; however, what was most important was still maintained as the
priority. In Coffin’s case, it was
the safety of the individual former slaves, and their right to safety that was
made a priority, more than the laws governing their safety as a group.
Civil disobedience and passive resistance remain a relevant topic today.
I would argue that modern day riots in Ferguson, Baltimore, and other American
cities cry out for a leader in non-violent protest. The more the media covers
the riots, the more it also covers the backlash from society when it comes to
the rioters. The lessons learned and conveyed by our predecessors in these texts
are crucial to our growth as we move forward as a country.
1865 flag of the USA