Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s
Justification of Defying Unjust Laws
by Lillian Bonar
Essay: Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Justification of Defying Unjust Laws
Pages: 11
Rating: 3 stars
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Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Justification of Defying Unjust Laws
In his famous essay, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,’’ Martin Luther King, Jr. cites conscience as a guide to obeying
just laws and defying unjust laws. In the same way, Henry David Thoreau wrote in his famous essay, “Civil
Disobedience,” that people should do what their conscience tells them and not obey unjust laws. The positions of
the two writers are very close, they use a common theme of conscience, and they use a similar rhetorical appeal of
ethos.
In “Civil Disobedience” Thoreau claims that men should act from their conscience. Thoreau believed it was the
duty of a person to disobey the law if his conscience says that the law is unjust. He believed this even if the law
was made by a democratic process. Thoreau wrote that a law is not just, only because the majority votes for it. He
wrote, “Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but
conscience?” (Thoreau, P. 4). Thoreau wanted a government in the United States that would make the just laws
based on conscience, because the people of the country would not let the elected representatives be unfair.
Thoreau did not think people can disobey any law when they want to. He believed that people should obey just
laws, however, Thoreau thought that not all laws were right, and he wrote that a man must obey what is right, not
what is the law: “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation
which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right” (Thoreau, P. 4).
Thoreau believed that when people disobey unjust laws, that will help change the laws to make them just...