Essays on Civil Disobedience

By Bob Blaisdell

Inexpensive but substantial, this anthology ranges from Henry David Thoreau's great nineteenth-century polemics "Civil Disobedience" and "Slavery in Massachusetts" to more recent writings by Aung San Suu Kyi as well as Nadezhda Tolokonnikova of the subversive Russian rock group Pussy Riot.
Additional selections include Leo Tolstoy's denouncement of capital punishment, "I Cannot Be Silent"; Bertrand Russell's "Civil Disobedience and the Threat of Nuclear Warfare"; and "Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience" and "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. Other contributors include William Lloyd Garrison, Albert Einstein, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Editor Bob Blaisdell provides an informative Introduction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: May 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9780486812038

Bob Blaisdell

Bob Blaisdell is professor of English at the City University of New York’s Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. He is author of Creating Anna Karenina: Tolstoy and the Birth of Literature's Most Enigmatic Heroine; Chekhov Becomes Chekhov: The Emergence of a Literary Genius; and Well, Mr. Mudrick Said . . . A Memoir. In addition, he is editor of more than three dozen literary anthologies.

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ESSAYS ON CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Edited by

Bob Blaisdell

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

MINEOLA, NEW YORK

DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

GENERAL EDITOR: SUSAN L. RATTINER

EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: JANET B. KOPITO

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: See page xi.

Copyright

Copyright © 2016 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

Essays on Civil Disobedience, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2016, is a new compilation of essays, reprinted from standard editions. Bob Blaisdell has selected the essays and provided the introductory Note and brief biographies. Spelling inconsistencies and the like derive from the sources and have been retained for the sake of authenticity.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Blaisdell, Robert, editor.

Title: Essays on civil disobedience / edited by Bob Blaisdell.

Description: Mineola, New York : Dover Publications, 2016. | Series: Dover thrift editions

Identifiers: LCCN 2015039464| ISBN 9780486793818 (paperback) | ISBN 0486793818 | eISBN 9780486812038

Subjects: LCSH: Civil disobedience. | BISAC: HISTORY / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies). | HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century. | LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Essays.

Classification: LCC JC328.3 .E85 2016 | DDC 303.6/1--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039464

Manufactured in the United States by RR Donnelley

79381801 2016

www.doverpublications.com

Note

IT’S HARDER TO say what civil disobedience is than what it does. What it does is prick our conscience to consider the morality of a particular law. Then it attempts to persuade us that the law being disobeyed is unjust. If civil disobedience results in its participants being arrested or attacked, no violence is returned. In court or in public media, persuasion will be attempted again. Civil disobedience is a brave and necessarily lonely and outnumbered action. The philosopher Tony Milligan has tried to define civil disobedience right up to and including the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011–2012, and concedes that the idealism of practicing civil disobedience, being a human endeavor, necessarily has failures: Even if we take a comparatively minimal view of what civil disobedience involves, i.e. non-violent but principled law-breaking, it may be pointed out that from Spain to London, and from San Francisco to Zuccotti Park, there was sporadic violence. Such violence, albeit at a low level, could hardly be avoided given the movement’s scale and diversity, not to mention its refusal to sanction any disciplining leadership.¹ The definition of civil disobedience, ever since Henry David Thoreau’s fierce expression of it in 1849 popularized its name, changes depending on who’s invoking it: In a sense, there simply is no single agreed-upon concept of civil disobedience that has proven stable over the course of time.² Perhaps the best definition that Milligan has found is the one roughed out by the American philosopher John Rawls: It is ‘a public nonviolent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government. By acting in this way one addresses the sense of justice of the majority of the community and declares that in one’s considered opinion the principles of social co-operation among free and equal men are not being respected.’³

We know that Mahatma Gandhi inspired a vast and important civil disobedience movement in his native India and relied on overcoming religious prejudices and differences. But there is no gainsaying that its origins, as understood by the giant of Russian civil disobedience, Leo Tolstoy, belonged to the principle of nonresistance described by Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel According to Matthew: Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.⁴ Tolstoy believed that the sense of morality was inherent in every person (The Kingdom of God is Within You) and was independent of dogmatic religion. He insisted that the value of Jesus’ principles were founded on their truth rather than on Jesus’ status as a divinity. His excited discussions in books and essays of his understanding of Christ’s teachings brought him into conflict with the Russian church and state, whose power-sharing had resulted in continual warfare with other nations and peoples, and at home in the subjugation of tens of millions of peasants. Tolstoy proved (to his and our satisfaction) that the violent actions of the civilized world, the Russian church and government included, contradicted the most fundamental Christian beliefs: "After eighteen hundred years of education in Christianity the civilized world, as represented by its most advanced thinkers, holds the conviction that the Christian religion is a religion of dogmas; that its teaching in relation to life is unreasonable, and is an exaggeration, subversive of the real lawful obligations of morality consistent with the nature of man; and that very doctrine of retribution which Christ rejected, and in place of which he put his teaching, is more practically useful for us.

"To learned men the doctrine of nonresistance to evil by force is exaggerated and even irrational. Christianity is much better without it, they think, not observing closely what Christianity, as represented by them, amounts to.

They do not see that to say that the doctrine of nonresistance to evil is an exaggeration in Christ’s teaching is just like saying that the statement of the equality of the radii of a circle is an exaggeration in the definition of a circle. And those who speak thus are acting precisely like a man who, having no idea of what a circle is, should declare that this requirement, that every point of the circumference should be an equal distance from the center, is exaggerated. To advocate the rejection of Christ’s command of nonresistance to evil, or its adaptation to the needs of life, implies a misunderstanding of the teaching of Christ.⁵

The utopian minister Adin Ballou, much less famous than his contemporary civilly disobedient fellow Americans William Lloyd Garrison and Henry David Thoreau, happily answered a favorite criticism of the absolute pacifism he practiced: I do firmly believe that in acting out these principles steadily and consistently, I shall continue longer uninjured, longer in the enjoyment of life, and longer safe from the depredations, assaults, and murderous violence of wicked men than with all the swords, guns, pistols, dirks, peace officers, sheriffs, judges, prisons, and gallows of the world. If this is the faith of a fool, then am I willing to be accounted a fool, until time shall test the merits of my position. It may not prove to be such great folly after all. ‘Well,’ says the objector, ‘I should like to know how you would manage matters if the ruffian should actually break into your house with settled intent to rob and murder. Would you shrink back like a coward and see your wife and children slaughtered before your eyes?’ I cannot tell how I might act in such a dreadful emergency—how weak and frail I should prove. But I can tell how I ought to act—how I should wish to act. If I am a firm, consistent non-resistant, I should prove myself no coward; for it requires the noblest courage and the highest fortitude to be a true non-resistant. If I am what I ought to be, I should be calm and unruffled by the alarm at my door. I should meet my wretched fellow-man with a spirit, an air, a salutation, and a deportment so Christ-like, so little expected, so confounding, and so morally irresistible that in all probability his weapons of violence and death would fall harmless to his side.⁶

Sixty-five years later Tolstoy was also answering the taunting critics of nonresistance: "The other day in one of the most progressive periodicals I read the opinion of an educated and intelligent writer, expressed with complete assurance in its correctness, that the recognition by me of the principle of nonresistance to evil by violence is a lamentable and somewhat comic delusion which, taking into consideration my old age and certain merits, can only be passed over in indulgent silence.

"Exactly the same attitude towards this question did I encounter in my conversation with the remarkably intelligent and progressive American [William Jennings] Bryan. He also, with the evident intention of gently and courteously showing me my delusion, asked me how I explained my strange principle of nonresistance to evil by violence, and as usual he brought forward the argument, which seems to everyone irrefutable, of the brigand who kills or violates a child. I told him that I recognize nonresistance to evil by violence because, having lived seventy-five years, I have never, except in discussions, encountered that fantastic brigand, who, before my eyes, desired to kill or violate a child, but that perpetually I did and do see not one but millions of brigands using violence towards children and women and men and old people and all the laborers in the name of the recognized right of violence over one’s fellows. When I said this my kind interlocutor, with his naturally quick perception, not giving me time to finish, laughed, and recognized that my argument was satisfactory.

"No one has seen the fantastic brigand, but the world, groaning under violence, lies before everyone’s eyes. Yet no one sees, nor desires to see, that the strife which can liberate man from violence is not a strife with the fantastic brigand, but with those actual brigands who practise violence over men.

Nonresistance to evil by violence really means only that the mutual interaction of rational beings upon each other should consist not in violence (which can be only admitted in relation to lower organisms deprived of reason) but in rational persuasion; and that, consequently, towards this substitution of rational persuasion for coercion all those should strive who desire to further the welfare of mankind.⁷

Tolstoy spent much of the last thirty years of his life advocating for civil disobedience, continually putting himself in danger of reprisals from the government and the church. The effectiveness of civil disobedience was so threatening to the unjust social order that Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., were eventually assassinated for, if among other reasons, their adherence to peaceful protest. Our living contemporaries Aung San Suu Kyi and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have suffered for their commitment to justice and their willingness to participate in civil disobedience. Perhaps Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s famous admonition is the sharpest and clearest directive: Live Not by Lies. Following this rule is bound to lead anyone into civil disobedience.

In making these selections, which could have been limited to essays by the four most famous authors on civil disobedience, Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi and King, I have tried to keep the focus on them while offering a few more examples of other brave and admirable practitioners up to our own times. Tony Milligan’s Civil Disobedience: Protest, Justification, and the Law (2013) is a provocative study; among the best anthologies on our theme is David R. Weber’s Civil Disobedience in America: A Documentary History (1978). I thank Professor Michael Denner, editor of Tolstoy Studies Journal, for sharing his thoughts about Tolstoy’s ideas of nonaction in The Kingdom of God is Within You.

—Bob Blaisdell

New York City,

January 2016

---

¹ Tony Milligan. Civil Disobedience: Protest, Justification, and the Law. New York and London: Bloomsbury. 2013. 9–10.

² Ibid. 13.

³ Ibid. 14. Milligan is quoting from Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971), page 364.

⁴ The Holy Bible, King James version. New York: American Bible Society. 1999.

⁵ Leo Tolstoy. Christianity Misunderstood by Men of Science (Chapter 4), in The Kingdom of God Is Within You. Translated by Constance Garnett. Mineola, New York: Dover, 2012.

⁶ See page 6.

⁷ What I Owe to Garrison by Leo Tolstoi [sic]. In V. Tchertkoff and F. Holah’s A Short Biography of William Lloyd Garrison. London: The Free Age Press. 1904. 52.

Contents

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

The Declaration of Sentiments Adopted by the Peace Convention (1838)

ADIN BALLOU

Non-Resistance in Relation to Human Governments (1839)

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Civil Disobedience (1849)

Slavery in Massachusetts (1854)

LEO TOLSTOY

Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand (1893)

Two Wars (1898)

Notes for Officers (1901)

I Cannot Be Silent (1908)

MAHATMA GANDHI

The Theory and Practice of Satyagraha (1914)

Ahmedabad (1919)

Satyagraha (Noncoöperation) (1920)

Limitations of Satyagraha (1927)

On the Eve of the March (1930)

Message to the Nation (1930)

ALBERT EINSTEIN

The Two Percent Speech (1930)

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience (1961)

Letter from Birmingham City Jail (1963)

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Civil Disobedience and the Threat of Nuclear Warfare (1963)

ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN

Live Not By Lies (1974)

AUNG SAN SUU KYI

Freedom from Fear (1991)

NADEZHDA TOLOKONNIKOVA (PUSSY RIOT)

Words Will Break Cement (2012)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The ‘Two Percent’ Speech, by Albert Einstein, reprinted with permission from The Albert Einstein Archives at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Civil Disobedience and the Threat of Nuclear Warfare, by Bertrand Russell, Reprinted with Permission from The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.

Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., copyright © 1961 by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., © renewed 1989 by Coretta Scott King; Letter from Birmingham City Jail copyright © 1963 by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., © renewed 1991 by Coretta Scott King. Reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., c/ o Writers House as agent for the proprietor New York, NY.

Live Not By Lies, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, reprinted with permission from ISI Books.

Words Will Break Cement, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, translated by Masha Gessen, from Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot by Masha Gessen, copyright © 2014 by Masha Gessen. Used by permission of Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

The Declaration of Sentiments Adopted by the Peace Convention (1838)

The Liberator, Vol. VIII. No. 39 (September 28, 1838)

Best known for his brave and relentless campaign for the abolition of slavery in the United States, William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) also distinguished himself for his commitment to civil disobedience, or, in his terms, nonresistance. Not only as an author but as a speaker, noted one of his contemporaries, he delivered a rain of fire.¹ The Peace Convention was a national political group committed to pacifism and based in Boston; The Declaration of Sentiments Adopted by the Peace Convention was published in Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, on September 28, 1838. The Russian novelist and peace activist Leo Tolstoy was inspired by Garrison’s life and writings and remarked, Garrison understood that which the most advanced among the fighters against slavery did not understand: that the only irrefutable argument against slavery is the denial of the right of any man over the liberty of another under any conditions whatsoever. Tolstoy concluded, Therefore Garrison will forever remain one of the greatest reformers and promoters of true human progress.²

ASSEMBLED IN CONVENTION, from various sections of the American Union, for the promotion of peace on earth and good-will among men, we, the undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to the cause which we love, to the country in which we live, and to the world, to publish a declaration, expressive of the principles we cherish, the purposes we aim to accomplish, and the measures we shall adopt to carry forward the work of peaceful, universal reformation.

We cannot acknowledge allegiance to any human government; neither can we oppose any such government by a resort to physical force. We recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one Judge and Ruler of mankind. We are bound by the laws of a kingdom which is not of this world; the subjects of which are forbidden to fight; in which Mercy and Truth are met together, and Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other; which has no state lines, no national partitions, no geographical boundaries; in which there is no distinction of rank, or division of caste, or inequality of sex; the officers of which are Peace, its extractors Righteousness, its walls Salvation, and its gates Praise; and which is destined to break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms.

Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity only as we love all other lands. The interests, rights, liberties of American citizens are no more dear to us than are those of the whole human race. Hence, we can allow no appeal to patriotism, to revenge any national insult or injury. The Prince of Peace, under whose stainless banner we rally, came not to destroy, but to save, even the worst of enemies. He has left us an example, that we should follow his steps. God commandeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

We conceive, that if a nation has no right to defend itself against foreign enemies, or to punish its invaders, no individual possesses that right in his own case. The unit cannot be of greater importance than the aggregate. If one man may take life, to obtain or defend his rights, the same license must necessarily be granted to communities, states, and nations. If he may use a dagger or a pistol, they may employ cannon, bomb-shells, land and naval forces. The means of self-preservation must be in proportion to the magnitude of interests at stake and the number of lives exposed to destruction. But if a rapacious and bloodthirsty soldiery, thronging these shores from abroad, with intent to commit rapine and destroy life, may not be resisted by the people or magistracy, then ought no resistance to be offered to domestic troublers of the public peace or of private security. No obligation can rest upon Americans to regard foreigners as more sacred in their persons than themselves, or to give them a monopoly of wrong-doing with impunity.

The dogma, that all the governments of the world are approvingly ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the United States, in Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with his will, is not less absurd than impious. It makes the impartial Author of human freedom and equality, unequal and tyrannical. It cannot be affirmed that the powers that be, in any nation, are actuated by the spirit or guided by the example of Christ, in the treatment of enemies; therefore, they cannot be agreeable to the will of God, and therefore, their overthrow, by a spiritual regeneration of their subjects, is inevitable.

We register our testimony, not only against all wars, whether offensive or defensive, but all prepations for war; against every naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification; against the militia system and a standing army; against all military chieftains and soldiers; against all monuments commemorative of victory over a fallen foe, all trophies won in battle, all celebrations in honor of military or naval exploits; against all appropriations for the defence of a nation by force and arms, on the part of any legislative body; against every edict of government requiring of its subjects military service. Hence, we deem it unlawful to bear arms, or to hold a military office.

As every human government is upheld by physical strength, and its laws are enforced virtually at the point of the bayonet, we cannot hold any office which imposes upon its incumbent the obligation to compel men to do right, on pain of imprisonent or death. We therefore voluntarily exclude ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and repudiate all human politics, worldly honors, and stations of authority. If we cannot occupy a seat in the legislature or on the bench, neither can we elect others to act as our substitutes in any such capacity.

It follows, that we cannot sue any man at law, to compel him by force to restore anything which he may have wrongfully taken from us or others; but if he has seized our coat, we shall surrender up our cloak, rather than subject him to punishment.

We believe that the penal code of the old covenant, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, has been abrogated by Jesus Christ; and that, under the new covenant, the forgiveness instead of the punishment of enemies has been enjoined upon all his disciples, in all cases whatsoever. To extort money from his enemies, or set them upon a pillory, or cast them into prison, or hang them upon a gallows, is obviously not to forgive, but to take retribution. Vengeance is mine—I will repay, saith the Lord.

The history of mankind is crowded with evidence proving that physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; that the sinful disposition of men can be subdued only by love; that evil can be exterminated from earth only by goodness; that it is not safe to rely on an arm of flesh, upon a man whose breath is in his nostrils, to preserve us from harm; that there is great security in being gentle, harmless, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy; that it is only the meek who shall inherit the earth, for the violent who resort to the sword are destined to perish with the sword. Hence, as a measure of sound policy—of safety to property, life, and liberty—of public quietude and private enjoyment—as well as on the ground of allegiance to Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, we cordially adopt the non-resistance principle; being confident that it provides for all possible consequences, will ensure all things needful to us, is armed with omnipotent power, and must ultimately triumph over every assailing force.

We advocate no jacobinical doctrine. The spirit of jacobinism is the spirit of retaliation, violence, and murder. It neither fears God nor regards man. We would be filled with the spirit of Christ. If we abide by our principles, it is impossible for us to be disorderly or plot treason, or participate in any evil work; we shall submit to every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake; obey all the requirements of Government, except such as we deem contrary to the commands of the gospel; and in no case resist the operation of the law, except by meekly submitting to the penalty of disobedience.

But, while we shall adhere to the doctrine of non-resistance and passive submission to enemies, we purpose, in a moral and spiritual sense, to speak and act boldly in the cause of God; to assail iniquity, in high places and in low places; to apply our principles to all existing civil, political, legal, and ecclesiastical institutions; and to hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world will have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever.

It appears to us a self-evident truth, that, whatever the gospel is designed to destroy at any period of the world, being contrary to it, ought now to be abandoned. If, then, the time is predicted when swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks, and men