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Civil Disobedience in America: A Documentary History
Forty-six documents advocating dissidence illuminate the nature and origin of civil disobedience in America and present the ideas of advocates from Edward Hart and William Lloyd Garrison to Stokely Carmichael and William Sloane Coffin
318 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1978
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March 20, 2017
Civil Disobedience in America is a collection of short pieces by influential practitioners of civil disobedience throughout American history. The pieces are generally very short, ranging from a few pages to perhaps 10 pages at the longest. In some cases, the (generally informative and thoughtfully written) introductions are almost as long as the actual historical document included.
The book is organized by general subject area, with sections on the Mexican-American War, the Fugitive Slave Act, women's suffrage, World War I, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. The book was published in the late 1970s, so the final section which includes a piece from Daniel Berrigan and other anti-war activists is quite contemporary to when the book was published. The longest section by a wide margin was the one concerning the Fugitive Slave Act. Women's suffrage got the short stick, with only a couple of pieces.
What I found most interesting as I read was the various distinctions about what types of civil disobedience each writer believed to appropriate, and under what circumstances. It's a difficult proposition to come up with a rigorous defense of why an individual ought to be empowered to break a certain law, but not to disregard the concept of law itself. Some writers are guided by very personal experiences, drawing on religious belief (many of the early pieces in the book are by clergy) or just very unshakable personal idiosyncratic moral commitments (Thoreau, for instance). Others are more concerned with using civil disobedience to create mass movements that bring social change.
There is a fascinating discussion of the ethics of accepting conscientious objector status in wartime, and whether it is better to be co-opted into the system or try to stand outside of it. Similarly, there is not agreement on whether those who commit acts of civil disobedience have an obligation to accept the criminal punishment for their acts (should they voluntarily pay a fine or go to prison) or whether a person can actively seek to avoid them. However, because of the nature of this book, these discussions are not really explored with the sort of depth they deserve; they are merely touched on by various writers in the course of their essays/speeches/letters. I'd be interested in reading something that addresses these issues in a more comprehensive way.
This book is a quick primer and gives the reader a flavor of the importance of civil disobedience in the history of the U.S. It's a good resource and starting point for someone that may be just starting to be interested in this topic.
The book is organized by general subject area, with sections on the Mexican-American War, the Fugitive Slave Act, women's suffrage, World War I, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. The book was published in the late 1970s, so the final section which includes a piece from Daniel Berrigan and other anti-war activists is quite contemporary to when the book was published. The longest section by a wide margin was the one concerning the Fugitive Slave Act. Women's suffrage got the short stick, with only a couple of pieces.
What I found most interesting as I read was the various distinctions about what types of civil disobedience each writer believed to appropriate, and under what circumstances. It's a difficult proposition to come up with a rigorous defense of why an individual ought to be empowered to break a certain law, but not to disregard the concept of law itself. Some writers are guided by very personal experiences, drawing on religious belief (many of the early pieces in the book are by clergy) or just very unshakable personal idiosyncratic moral commitments (Thoreau, for instance). Others are more concerned with using civil disobedience to create mass movements that bring social change.
There is a fascinating discussion of the ethics of accepting conscientious objector status in wartime, and whether it is better to be co-opted into the system or try to stand outside of it. Similarly, there is not agreement on whether those who commit acts of civil disobedience have an obligation to accept the criminal punishment for their acts (should they voluntarily pay a fine or go to prison) or whether a person can actively seek to avoid them. However, because of the nature of this book, these discussions are not really explored with the sort of depth they deserve; they are merely touched on by various writers in the course of their essays/speeches/letters. I'd be interested in reading something that addresses these issues in a more comprehensive way.
This book is a quick primer and gives the reader a flavor of the importance of civil disobedience in the history of the U.S. It's a good resource and starting point for someone that may be just starting to be interested in this topic.
Displaying 1 of 1 review