Civil disobedience

• 1. Ancient Roots And Early Voices

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  In Sophocles' play Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus defies King Creon to bury her brother Polynices. She declares that she must obey her conscience rather than human law. The threat of death does not frighten her as much as the fear of how her conscience will smite her if she fails to act. This ancient Greek drama presents one of the earliest depictions of civil disobedience in recorded history.

  Centuries later, Conrad Grebel and Anabaptists advocated for resistance against oppression through similar means. Étienne de La Boétie developed his thought in Discours de la servitude volontaire ou le Contr'un published in 1552. He theorized non-cooperation as a weapon against voluntary servitude. His work drew from the concept of rebellion to establish a foundation for struggle without violence.

  During the Glorious Revolution in Britain, the English Midland Enlightenment emerged around 1689. They voiced objection to laws viewed as illegitimate while accepting the consequences. For instance, they might refuse to swear allegiance to the king and accept the prison sentence legally meted out to those who refused this oath. Their focus targeted the illegitimacy of laws claimed to be divine in origin.

• 2. Thoreau And The Modern Term

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  Henry David Thoreau wrote Resistance to Civil Government in 1849. He explained his refusal to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and the Mexican, American War. In the essay he stated that citizens are morally responsible for their support of aggressors even when such support is required by law. He argued that one must get off another man's shoulders before pursuing other contemplations.

  The essay was published posthumously in 1866 under the title Civil Disobedience. By that time four years after his death, the term had achieved fairly widespread usage in sermons and lectures relating to slavery and the war in Mexico. Oliver Stearns delivered a sermon titled The Gospel Applied to the Fugitive Slave Law in 1851. John Newell and John Chase Lord published Higher Law in Its Application to the Fugitive Slave Bill also in 1851.

  Thoreau advised a confused taxman who wondered how to handle his refusal to pay: Resign. He insisted on confronting anyone who chose to be an agent of injustice with the fact that they were making a choice. His arrest went unnoticed by newspapers in the days weeks and months after it happened because he was not yet a well-known author.

• 3. Global Campaigns And National Leaders

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  Mahatma Gandhi led campaigns for independence from the British Empire during the 1920s in India. He made salt in violation of and protest against British salt laws as part of this movement. Gandhi often quoted Percy Shelley's Mask of Anarchy to vast audiences during the campaign for a free India. This poem began with images of unjust forms of authority and imagined stirrings of new social action.

  In Egypt, Zaghloul Pasha masterminded a massive civil disobedience movement starting in 1914 and peaking in 1919. As a native middle-class Azhar graduate and political activist, he brought Christian and Muslim communities together along with women into massive protests. His leadership helped achieve independence for Egypt and a first constitution in 1923 through the Wafd Party.

  American women's suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony practiced civil disobedience in the late 19th century. Martin Luther King Jr. and James Bevel organized peaceful nonviolent protests during the civil rights movement in the 1960s United States. King regarded civil disobedience as a display and practice of reverence for law while accepting penalties.

• 4. Theoretical Frameworks And Definitions

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  John Rawls described civil disobedience in his 1971 book A Theory of Justice as a public non-violent conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about change in the law or policies of the government. Ronald Dworkin held that there are three types of civil disobedience: integrity-based justice-based and policy-based.

  Integrity-based civil disobedience occurs when a citizen disobeys a law they feel is immoral like abolitionists disobeying fugitive slave laws by refusing to turn over escaped slaves. Justice-based civil disobedience happens when citizens disobey laws to lay claim to some right denied to them such as Black people illegally protesting during the civil rights movement. Policy-based civil disobedience occurs when a person breaks the law to change a policy they believe is dangerously wrong.

  Brownlee argues that disobedience in opposition to decisions of non-governmental agencies can be justified if it reflects a larger challenge to the legal system that permits those decisions to be taken. This principle applies to breaches of law in protest against international organizations and foreign governments.

• 5. Violence Versus Nonviolence Debates

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  Black's Law Dictionary includes nonviolence in its definition of civil disobedience. Christian Bay's encyclopedia article states that civil disobedience requires carefully chosen and legitimate means but holds that they do not have to be non-violent. H.J. McCloskey argued that if violent intimidatory coercive disobedience is more effective it is other things being equal more justified than less effective nonviolent disobedience.

  Howard Zinn rejects any easy and righteous dismissal of violence noting that Thoreau approved of the armed insurrection of John Brown. He also notes that some major civil disobedience campaigns which have been classified as non-violent like the Birmingham campaign actually included elements of violence. Davis D. Joyce noted that Disobedience and Democracy sold 75,000 copies in the late 1960s and was Zinn's best-selling book prior to A People's History of the United States.

  Civil disobedients' refraining from violence helps preserve society's tolerance of civil disobedience. Yet rebellion is much more destructive so the defects justifying rebellion must be much more serious than those justifying disobedience.

• 6. Legal Strategies And Courtroom Tactics

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  Protesters at Camp Mercury nuclear test site near Las Vegas Nevada crossed a line in August 1957 knowing they faced arrest. They were taken to Nye County seat of Tonopah for trial before the local Justice of the Peace that afternoon. Francis Heisler advised them to plead nolo contendere rather than guilty or not guilty. They were found guilty and given suspended sentences conditional on not reentering the test site.

  Tim DeChristopher gave an allocution statement describing the US as a place where rule of law was created through acts of civil disobedience. He argued that bedrock acts of civil disobedience by founding fathers helped grow closer to shared higher moral code through civil disobedience that drew attention to legalized injustice. In U.S. v. Burgos-Andujar a defendant increased her sentence from 40 to 60 days after arguing Navy members violated greater law.

  The Committee for Non-Violent Action used solidarity tactics to secure same plea bargain for everyone in mass arrest situations. Mahatma Gandhi pleaded guilty telling court he was there to submit cheerfully to highest penalty for deliberate crime appearing to him as highest duty of citizen. Some activists opted to enter blind plea without any agreement in place.