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139-536: Various forms of civil disobedience have been used by prominent activists such as American women's suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony in the late 19th century, Egyptian nationalist Saad Zaghloul during the 1910s, and Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi in 1920s British India as part of his leadership of the Indian independence movement . Martin Luther King Jr. 's and James Bevel 's peaceful nonviolent protests during

278-694: A U.S. senator, on the speaker's platform. Amid increasing confidence that the Fifteenth Amendment , which would in effect enfranchise black men, was assured of passage, Lucy Stone, a future president of the NEWSA, showed her preference for enfranchising both women and African Americans by unexpectedly introducing a resolution calling for the Republican Party to "drop its watchword of 'Manhood Suffrage'" and to support universal suffrage instead. Despite opposition by Frederick Douglass and others, Stone convinced

417-461: A Woman? " at the convention, directly addressed some of this opposition in her speech. The National Women's Rights Convention in 1852 was also disrupted, and mob action at the 1853 convention came close to violence. The World's Temperance Convention in New York City in 1853 bogged down for three days in a dispute about whether women would be allowed to speak there. Susan B. Anthony , a leader of

556-507: A broad-based reform party that would support women's suffrage. Anthony opposed that idea, wanting the NWSA to remain politically independent. The NWSA soon had reason to regret its association with Woodhull. In 1872, she published details of a purported adulterous affair between Rev. Henry Ward Beecher , president of the AWSA, and Elizabeth Tilton, wife of a leading NWSA member. Beecher's subsequent trial

695-479: A civil disobedient who pleads guilty is essentially stating, "Yes, I committed the act of which you accuse me. I don't deny it; in fact, I am proud of it. I feel I did the right thing by violating this particular law; I am guilty as charged", but that pleading not guilty sends a message of, "Guilt implies wrong-doing. I feel I have done no wrong. I may have violated some specific laws, but I am guilty of doing no wrong. I, therefore, plead not guilty." A plea of no contest

834-590: A coordinating committee that arranged the annual national conventions. Much of the organizational work for these conventions was performed by Stone, the most visible leader of the movement during this period. At the national convention in 1852, a proposal was made to form a national women's rights organization, but the idea was dropped after fears were voiced that such a move would create cumbersome machinery and lead to internal divisions. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met in 1851 and soon became close friends and co-workers. Their decades-long collaboration

973-470: A desired social goal (such as the provision of medication to the sick) while openly breaking the law. Julia Butterfly Hill lived in Luna , a 180-foot (55 m)-tall, 600-year-old California Redwood tree for 738 days, preventing its felling. In cases where the criminalized behaviour is pure speech , civil disobedience can consist simply of engaging in the forbidden speech. An example is WBAI 's broadcasting of

1112-418: A family that was deeply involved in politics, became a major force in convincing the women's movement that political pressure was crucial to its goals, and that the right to vote was a key weapon. An estimated 300 women and men attended this two-day event, which was widely noted in the press. The only resolution that was not adopted unanimously by the convention was the one demanding women's right to vote, which

1251-442: A fine of $ 100, she responded, "I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty", and she never did. However the judge did not order her to be imprisoned until she paid the fine, for Anthony could have appealed her case. On August 18, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump posthumously pardoned Anthony on the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment . In 1876, Anthony, Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage began working on

1390-532: A former slave, gave it his strong support. The convention's Declaration of Sentiments , which was written primarily by Stanton, expressed an intent to build a women's rights movement, and it included a list of grievances, the first two of which protested the lack of women's suffrage. The grievances which were aimed at the United States government "demanded government reform and changes in male roles and behaviors that promoted inequality for women." This convention

1529-462: A maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action. Some civil disobedients feel it is incumbent upon them to accept punishment because of their belief in the validity of the social contract , which is held to bind all to obey the laws that a government meeting certain standards of legitimacy has established, or else suffer

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1668-520: A mass defection of abolitionists and other social reformers from the Republicans to the short-lived Liberal Republican Party . The rivalry between the two women's groups was so bitter, however, that a merger proved to be impossible until 1890. In 1869, Francis and Virginia Minor , husband and wife suffragists from Missouri, outlined a strategy that came to be known as the New Departure , which engaged

1807-516: A national suffrage amendment. Over 200 NWP supporters, the Silent Sentinels , were arrested in 1917 while picketing the White House , some of whom went on hunger strike and endured forced feeding after being sent to prison. Under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt , the two-million-member NAWSA also made a national suffrage amendment its top priority. After a hard-fought series of votes in

1946-543: A peaceful blockade or occupying a facility illegally, though sometimes violence has been known to occur. Often there is an expectation to be attacked or even beaten by the authorities. Protesters often undergo training in advance on how to react to arrest or to attack. Civil disobedience is usually defined as pertaining to a citizen's relation to the state and its laws, as distinguished from a constitutional impasse , in which two public agencies, especially two equally sovereign branches of government , conflict. For instance, if

2085-400: A person can act unjustly. When the government knocks on the door, it is a person in the form of a postman or tax collector whose hand hits the wood. Before Thoreau's imprisonment, when a confused taxman had wondered aloud about how to handle his refusal to pay, Thoreau had advised, "Resign". If a man chose to be an agent of injustice, then Thoreau insisted on confronting him with the fact that he

2224-516: A prominent newspaper editor, told Anthony and Stanton, "This is a critical period for the Republican Party and the life of our Nation... I conjure you to remember that this is 'the negro's hour,' and your first duty now is to go through the State and plead his claims." They and others, including Lucy Stone, refused to postpone their demands, however, and continued to push for universal suffrage . In April 1867, Stone and her husband, Henry Blackwell , opened

2363-574: A range of legal measures and public practices that to them promoted ethnic, religious, and racial discrimination . Pro Public and typically peaceful resistance to political power remained an integral tactic in modern American minority rights politics. In Ireland starting from 1879 the Irish " Land War " intensified when Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell , in a speech in Ennis proposed that when dealing with tenants who take farms where another tenant

2502-474: A resolution in favor of women's suffrage despite opposition from some of its organizers, who believed the idea was too extreme. By the time of the first National Women's Rights Convention in 1850, however, suffrage was becoming an increasingly important aspect of the movement's activities. The first national suffrage organizations were established in 1869 when two competing organizations were formed, one led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and

2641-558: A sophisticated movement in New York State, but their work at this time dealt with women's issues in general, not specifically suffrage. Anthony, who eventually became the person most closely associated in the public mind with women's suffrage, later said, "I wasn't ready to vote, didn't want to vote, but I did want equal pay for equal work." In the period just before the Civil War, Anthony gave priority to anti-slavery work over her work for

2780-547: A statewide basis, which also endorsed women's suffrage. The first in a series of National Women's Rights Conventions was held in Worcester, Massachusetts on October 23–24, 1850, at the initiative of Lucy Stone and Paulina Wright Davis . National conventions were held afterwards almost every year through 1860, when the Civil War (1861–1865) interrupted the practice. Suffrage was a preeminent goal of these conventions, no longer

2919-462: A stirring speech in which she tells him that she must obey her conscience rather than human law. She is not at all afraid of the death he threatens her with (and eventually carries out), but she is afraid of how her conscience will smite her if she does not do this. Conrad Grebel and Anabaptists advocated civil disobedience to oppression. Étienne de La Boétie 's thought developed in his work Discours de la servitude volontaire ou le Contr'un (1552)

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3058-404: A strong supporter of women's suffrage, said, "The race to which I belong have not generally taken the right ground on this question." Douglass, however, strongly supported the amendment, saying it was a matter of life and death for former slaves. Lucy Stone, who became the AWSA's most prominent leader, supported the amendment but said she believed that suffrage for women would be more beneficial to

3197-473: A system to function. In this way, they might be considered coercive; coercive disobedience has the effect of exposing the enforcement of laws and policies, and it has even operated as an aesthetic strategy in contemporary art practice. Brownlee notes that "although civil disobedients are constrained in their use of coercion by their conscientious aim to engage in moral dialogue, nevertheless they may find it necessary to employ limited coercion to get their issue onto

3336-484: A wider range of issues than the AWSA, including divorce reform and equal pay for women . The NWSA was led by women only while the AWSA included both men and women among its leadership. Events soon removed much of the basis for the split in the movement. In 1870 debate about the Fifteenth Amendment was made irrelevant when that amendment was officially ratified. In 1872, disgust with corruption in government led to

3475-439: Is a whole class of acts, undertaken in the name of civil disobedience, which, even if they were widely practiced, would in themselves constitute hardly more than a nuisance (e.g. trespassing at a nuclear-missile installation) ... Such acts are often just a harassment and, at least to the bystander, somewhat inane ... The remoteness of the connection between the disobedient act and the objectionable law lays such acts open to

3614-431: Is distinct from other kinds of hacktivism in that the perpetrator openly reveals his identity. Virtual actions rarely succeed in completely shutting down their targets, but they often generate media attention. Dilemma actions are designed to create a "response dilemma" for public authorities "by forcing them to either concede some public space to protesters or make themselves look absurd or heavy-handed by acting against

3753-461: Is done by remaining in jail, or by evading it. To accept jail penitently as an accession to "the rules" is to switch suddenly to a spirit of subservience, to demean the seriousness of the protest ... In particular, the neo-conservative insistence on a guilty plea should be eliminated. Sometimes the prosecution proposes a plea bargain to civil disobedients, as in the case of the Camden 28 , in which

3892-423: Is known that Gandhi often quoted Shelley's Mask of Anarchy to vast audiences during the campaign for a free India. Thoreau's 1849 essay Civil Disobedience , originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience. The driving idea behind the essay is that citizens are morally responsible for their support of aggressors, even when such support

4031-430: Is more effective than open disobedience. This assumes that common morality does not have a prohibition on deceit in such situations. The Fully Informed Jury Association 's publication "A Primer for Prospective Jurors" notes, "Think of the dilemma faced by German citizens when Hitler 's secret police demanded to know if they were hiding a Jew in their house." By this definition, civil disobedience could be traced back to

4170-416: Is more effective, it is, other things being equal, more justified than less effective, nonviolent disobedience." In his best-selling Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order , Howard Zinn takes a similar position; Zinn states that while the goals of civil disobedience are generally nonviolent, in the inevitable tension accompanying the transition from a violent world to a non-violent one,

4309-516: Is more of an active attempt to overthrow a government (or to change cultural traditions, social customs or religious beliefs). Revolution does not have to be political, i.e. "cultural revolution", it simply implies sweeping and widespread change to a section of the social fabric. Gandhi's acts have been described as revolutionary civil disobedience. It has been claimed that the Hungarians under Ferenc Deák directed revolutionary civil disobedience against

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4448-499: Is much more destructive; therefore, the defects justifying rebellion must be much more serious than those justifying disobedience, and if one cannot justify civil rebellion, then one cannot justify a civil disobedient's use of force and violence and refusal to submit to arrest. Civil disobedients' refraining from violence is also said to help preserve society's tolerance of civil disobedience. The philosopher H. J. McCloskey argues that "if violent, intimidatory, coercive disobedience

4587-422: Is not necessarily right. In his 1971 book, A Theory of Justice , John Rawls described civil disobedience 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: Some theories of civil disobedience hold that civil disobedience

4726-453: Is only justified against governmental entities. Brownlee argues that disobedience in opposition to the decisions of non-governmental agencies such as trade unions , banks, and private universities can be justified if it reflects "a larger challenge to the legal system that permits those decisions to be taken". The same principle, she argues, applies to breaches of law in protest against international organizations and foreign governments. It

4865-500: Is required by law. In the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican–American War . He writes, If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency

5004-596: Is sometimes regarded as a compromise between the two. One defendant accused of illegally protesting nuclear power , when asked to enter his plea, stated, "I plead for the beauty that surrounds us"; this is known as a "creative plea", and will usually be interpreted as a plea of not guilty. When the Committee for Non-Violent Action sponsored a protest in August 1957, at the Camp Mercury nuclear test site near Las Vegas, Nevada, 13 of

5143-589: Is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico;—see if I would go;" and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. By the 1850s, a range of minority groups in the United States : African Americans, Jews, Seventh Day Baptists , Catholics, anti-prohibitionists, racial egalitarians, and others—employed civil disobedience to combat

5282-543: Is usually recognized that lawbreaking, if it is not done publicly, at least must be publicly announced to constitute civil disobedience. But Stephen Eilmann argues that if it is necessary to disobey rules that conflict with morality, we might ask why disobedience should take the form of public civil disobedience rather than simply covert lawbreaking. If a lawyer wishes to help a client overcome legal obstacles to securing their natural rights , he might, for instance, find that assisting in fabricating evidence or committing perjury

5421-433: Is whether to plead guilty . There is much debate on this point, as some believe that it is a civil disobedient's duty to submit to the punishment prescribed by law, while others believe that defending oneself in court will increase the possibility of changing the unjust law. It has also been argued that either choice is compatible with the spirit of civil disobedience. ACT UP 's Civil Disobedience Training handbook states that

5560-594: Is wrong. The resistance to authority in South Africa was well advanced before I got the essay ... When I saw the title of Thoreau's great essay, I began to use his phrase to explain our struggle to the English readers. But I found that even "Civil Disobedience" failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase "Civil Resistance." In seeking an active form of civil disobedience, one may choose to deliberately break certain laws, such as by forming

5699-546: The 1689 Bill of Rights was documented, the last Catholic monarch was deposed, and male and female joint-co-monarchs elevated—the English Midland Enlightenment developed a manner of voicing objection to a law viewed as illegitimate and then taking the consequences of the law. (For example, they might refuse to swear allegiance to the king, and, as a consequence, accept the prison sentence legally and normally meted out to people who refused to take this oath.) This

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5838-598: The Austrian government . Thoreau also wrote of civil disobedience accomplishing "peaceable revolution". Howard Zinn, Harvey Wheeler , and others have identified the right espoused in the US Declaration of Independence to "alter or abolish" an unjust government to be a principle of civil disobedience. The earliest recorded incidents of collective civil disobedience took place during the Roman Empire . Unarmed Jews gathered in

5977-660: The Baltic countries from the Soviet Union , and more recently with the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013–2014 Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine, the 2016–2017 Candlelight Revolution in South Korea, and the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests , among many other various movements worldwide. Henry David Thoreau 's 1849 essay "Resistance to Civil Government"

6116-673: The Book of Exodus , where Shiphrah and Puah refused a direct order of Pharaoh but misrepresented how they did it. (Exodus 1: 15–19) There have been debates as to whether civil disobedience must necessarily be non-violent. 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. It has been argued that, while both civil disobedience and civil rebellion are justified by appeal to constitutional defects , rebellion

6255-748: The British Empire ), in Czechoslovakia 's Velvet Revolution , in early stages of the Bangladeshi independence movement against Pakistani colonialism and in East Germany to oust their Stalinist government. In South Africa during the leftist campaign against the far-right Apartheid regime, in the American civil rights movement against Jim Crow laws , in the Singing Revolution to bring independence to

6394-576: The Fourteenth Amendment (which granted citizenship to black men but for the first time introduced the word "male" into the Constitution), saying, "While the dominant party has with one hand lifted up two million black men and crowned them with the honor and dignity of citizenship, with the other it has dethroned fifteen million white women – their own mothers and sisters, their own wives and daughters – and cast them under

6533-458: The History of Woman Suffrage . Originally envisioned as a modest publication that would be produced quickly, the history evolved into a six-volume work of more than 5700 pages written over a period of 41 years. Its last two volumes were published in 1920, long after the deaths of the project's originators, by Ida Husted Harper , who also assisted with the fourth volume. Written by leaders of one wing of

6672-671: The Liberty Party in Rochester, New York in May 1848 approved a resolution calling for "universal suffrage in its broadest sense, including women as well as men." Gerrit Smith , its candidate for president, delivered a speech shortly afterwards at the National Liberty Convention in Buffalo, New York , that elaborated on his party's call for women's suffrage. Lucretia Mott was suggested as

6811-463: The U.S. Supreme Court would rule that women had a constitutional right to vote, suffragists made several attempts to vote in the early 1870s and then filed lawsuits when they were turned away. Anthony actually succeeded in voting in 1872 but was arrested for that act and found guilty in a widely publicized trial that gave the movement fresh momentum. After the Supreme Court ruled against them in

6950-404: The civil rights movement in the 1960s United States sometimes contained important aspects of civil disobedience. Although civil disobedience is rarely justifiable in court, King regarded civil disobedience to be a display and practice of reverence for law: "Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of

7089-449: The head of government of a country were to refuse to enforce a decision of that country's highest court, it would not be civil disobedience, since the head of government would act in his or her capacity as public official rather than private citizen. This definition is disputed by Thoreau's political philosophy on the conscience vs. the collective. The person is the final judge of right and wrong. More than this, since only people act, only

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7228-587: The 1850s. In 1852, Stanton advocated women's suffrage in a speech at the New York State Temperance Convention. In 1853, Stone became the first woman to appeal for women's suffrage before a body of lawmakers when she addressed the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention. In 1854, Anthony organized a petition campaign in New York State that included the demand for suffrage. It culminated in a women's rights convention in

7367-421: The 1875 case Minor v. Happersett , suffragists began the decades-long campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would enfranchise women. Much of the movement's energy, however, went toward working for suffrage on a state-by-state basis. These efforts included pursuing officeholding rights separately in an effort to bolster their argument in favor of voting rights. The first state to grant women

7506-564: The AERA campaign in Kansas in support of referendums in that state that would enfranchise both African Americans and women. Wendell Phillips , an abolitionist leader who opposed mixing those two causes, surprised and angered AERA workers by blocking the funding that the AERA had expected for their campaign. After an internal struggle, Kansas Republicans decided to support suffrage for black men only and formed an "Anti-Female Suffrage Committee" to oppose

7645-410: The AERA's efforts. By the end of summer, the AERA campaign had almost collapsed, and its finances were exhausted. Anthony and Stanton were harshly criticized by Stone and other AERA members for accepting help during the last days of the campaign from George Francis Train , a wealthy businessman who supported women's rights. Train antagonized many activists by attacking the Republican Party, which had won

7784-546: The Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court denied a divorce to a woman whose husband had horsewhipped her, saying, "The law gives the husband power to use such a degree of force necessary to make the wife behave and know her place." Married women in many states could not legally sign contracts, which made it difficult for them to arrange for convention halls, printed materials, and other things needed by

7923-651: The Laws of England , an authoritative commentary on the English common law on which the American legal system is modeled, "By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage", referring to the legal doctrine of coverture that was introduced to England by the Normans in the Middle Ages . In 1862,

8062-461: The Massachusetts legislature, the first woman in the U.S. to speak before a legislative body. Other women began to give public speeches, especially in opposition to slavery and in support of women's rights . Early female speakers included Ernestine Rose , a Jewish immigrant from Poland; Lucretia Mott, a Quaker minister and abolitionist ; and Abby Kelley Foster , a Quaker abolitionist. Toward

8201-612: The New Departure strategy: in 1868 in Vineland, New Jersey, a center for radical spiritualists , nearly 200 women placed their ballots into a separate box and attempted to have them counted, but without success. The AWSA did not officially adopt the New Departure strategy, but Lucy Stone , its leader, attempted to vote in her home town in New Jersey. In one court case resulting from a lawsuit brought by women who had been prevented from voting,

8340-599: The New England Woman Suffrage Association a year earlier, formed the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The hostile rivalry between these two organizations created a partisan atmosphere that endured for decades, affecting even professional historians of the women's movement. The immediate cause for the split was the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution , a Reconstruction amendment that would prohibit

8479-412: The Republican Party and the abolitionist movement. The other, whose leading figures were Anthony and Stanton, insisted that women and black men be enfranchised at the same time and worked toward a politically independent women's movement that would no longer be dependent on abolitionists for financial and other resources. The acrimonious annual meeting of the AERA in May 1869 signaled the effective demise of

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8618-472: The Right to Vote?" Describing women's suffrage as the cornerstone of the women's movement, it was later circulated as a women's rights tract. Several of the women who played leading roles in the national conventions, especially Stone, Anthony and Stanton, were also leaders in establishing women's suffrage organizations after the Civil War. They also included the demand for suffrage as part of their activities during

8757-671: The Sexes and the Condition of Women, which was widely circulated. In 1845, Margaret Fuller published Woman in the Nineteenth Century , a key document in American feminism that first appeared in serial form in 1839 in The Dial , a transcendentalist journal that Fuller edited. The very truths you are now contending for, will, in fifty years, be so completely imbedded in public opinion that no one need say one word in their defense; whilst at

8896-504: The U.S. Congress and in state legislatures, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920. It states, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." Most of the early U.S. states, continuing in their pre- Revolutionary War traditions as British colonies , adopted constitutions that expressly denied women

9035-484: The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ruled that women did not have an implicit right to vote, declaring that, "The fact that the practical working of the assumed right would be destructive of civilization is decisive that the right does not exist." In 1871, Victoria Woodhull , a stockbroker, was invited to speak before a committee of Congress, the first woman to do so. Although she had little previous connection to

9174-432: The activist community, that a suspect's talking to criminal investigators can serve no useful purpose and may be harmful. Some civil disobedients are compelled to respond to investigators' questions, sometimes by a misunderstanding of the legal ramifications or a fear of seeming rude. Also, some civil disobedients seek to use the arrest as an opportunity to make an impression on the officers. Thoreau wrote, My civil neighbor,

9313-502: The amendment would create an "aristocracy of sex" by giving constitutional authority to the idea that men were superior to women. Male power and privilege was at the root of society's ills, Stanton argued, and nothing should be done to strengthen it. Anthony and Stanton also warned that black men, who would gain voting power under the amendment, were overwhelmingly opposed to women's suffrage. They were not alone in being unsure of black male support for women's suffrage. Frederick Douglass ,

9452-603: The armed insurrection of John Brown . He also notes that some major civil disobedience campaigns which have been classified as non-violent, such as the Birmingham campaign , have actually included elements of violence. Non-revolutionary civil disobedience is a simple disobedience of laws on the grounds that they are judged "wrong" by a person's conscience, or as part of an effort to render certain laws ineffective, to cause their repeal, or to exert pressure to get one's political wishes on some other issue. Revolutionary civil disobedience

9591-463: The bit " Filthy Words " from a George Carlin comedy album, which eventually led to the 1978 Supreme Court case of FCC v. Pacifica Foundation . Threatening government officials is a way to express defiance toward the government and unwillingness to stand for its policies. For example, a supporter of some tax deniers in New Hampshire , Edward and Elaine Brown , was arrested for allegedly telling

9730-444: The cause is more important than my freedom" and not incorrectly believe themselves to have legal immunity or feel a sense of entitlement to break laws without being subject to the ordinary legal punishments for breaking those laws. Some disciplines of civil disobedience hold that the protester must submit to arrest and cooperate with the authorities. Others advocate falling limp or resisting arrest , especially when it will hinder

9869-514: The charge of ineffectiveness and absurdity. Bedau also notes, though, that the very harmlessness of such entirely symbolic illegal protests toward public policy goals may serve a propaganda purpose. Some civil disobedients, such as the proprietors of illegal medical cannabis dispensaries and Voice in the Wilderness, which brought medicine to Iraq without the permission of the US government, directly achieve

10008-437: The choice of means will almost never be pure, and will involve such complexities that the simple distinction between violence and non-violence does not suffice as a guide ... the very acts with which we seek to do good cannot escape the imperfections of the world we are trying to change. Zinn rejects any "easy and righteous dismissal of violence", noting that Thoreau, the popularizer of the term civil disobedience, approved of

10147-531: The colonial era are known to have voted. The New Jersey constitution of 1776 enfranchised all adult inhabitants who owned a specified amount of property. Laws enacted in 1790 and 1797 referred to voters as "he or she", and women regularly voted. A law passed in 1807, however, excluded women from voting in that state. Kentucky passed the first statewide woman suffrage law in the antebellum era (since New Jersey revoked their woman suffrage rights in 1807) in 1838 – allowing voting by any widow or feme sole (legally,

10286-455: The community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law." An early depiction of civil disobedience is in Sophocles ' play Antigone , in which Antigone , one of the daughters of former King of Thebes , Oedipus , defies Creon , the current King of Thebes, who is trying to stop her from giving her brother Polynices a proper burial. She gives

10425-400: The controversial issue it had been at Seneca Falls only two years earlier. At the first national convention Stone gave a speech that included a call to petition state legislatures for the right of suffrage. Reports of this convention reached Britain, prompting Harriet Taylor , soon to be married to philosopher John Stuart Mill , to write an essay called "The Enfranchisement of Women," which

10564-680: The country than suffrage for black men. The AWSA and most AERA members also supported the amendment. Both wings of the movement were strongly associated with opposition to slavery, but their leaders sometimes expressed views that reflected the racial attitudes of that era. Stanton, for example, believed that a long process of education would be needed before what she called the "lower orders" of former slaves and immigrant workers would be able to participate meaningfully as voters. In an article in The Revolution , Stanton wrote, "American women of wealth, education, virtue and refinement, if you do not wish

10703-464: The defendants were offered an opportunity to plead guilty to one misdemeanour count and receive no jail time. In some mass arrest situations, the activists decide to use solidarity tactics to secure the same plea bargain for everyone. Women%27s suffrage in the United States Women's suffrage , or the right of women to vote, was established in the United States over the course of

10842-399: The denial of suffrage because of race. The original language of the amendment included a clause banning voting discrimination on the basis of sex, but was later removed. Stanton and Anthony opposed its passage unless it was accompanied by another amendment that would prohibit the denial of suffrage because of sex. They said that by effectively enfranchising all men while excluding all women,

10981-489: The divided women's movement (Lucy Stone, their main rival, refused to have anything to do with the project), the History of Woman Suffrage preserves an enormous amount of material that might have been lost forever, but it does not give a balanced view of events where their rivals are concerned. Because it was for years the main source of documentation about the suffrage movement, historians have had to uncover other sources to provide

11120-506: The end of the 1840s, Lucy Stone launched her career as a public speaker, soon becoming the most famous female lecturer. Supporting both the abolitionist and women's rights movements, Stone played a major role in reducing the prejudice against women speaking in public. Opposition remained strong, however. A regional women's rights convention in Ohio in 1851 was disrupted by male opponents. Sojourner Truth , who delivered her famous speech " Ain't I

11259-498: The far more difficult strategy of campaigning for a constitutional amendment that would guarantee voting rights for women. In a case that generated national controversy, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for violating the Enforcement Act of 1870 by casting a vote in the 1872 presidential election . At the trial , the judge directed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict. When he asked Anthony, who had not been permitted to speak during

11398-475: The first since the Civil War , was held in 1866, helping the women's rights movement regain the momentum it had lost during the war. The convention voted to transform itself into the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), whose purpose was to campaign for the equal rights of all citizens, especially the right of suffrage. In addition to Anthony and Stanton, who organized the convention,

11537-453: The formulation of a single all-encompassing definition of the term is extremely difficult, if not impossible. In reviewing the voluminous literature on the subject, the student of civil disobedience rapidly finds himself surrounded by a maze of semantical problems and grammatical niceties. Like Alice in Wonderland , he often finds that specific terminology has no more (or no less) meaning than

11676-573: The head of household) over 21 who resided in and owned property subject to taxation for the new county's "common school" system. This partial suffrage rights for women were not expressed as for whites only. The demand for women's suffrage emerged as part of the broader movement for women's rights. In the UK in 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a pioneering book called A Vindication of the Rights of Woman . In Boston in 1838 Sarah Grimké published The Equality of

11815-435: The heel of the lowest orders of manhood." They urged liberal Democrats to convince their party, which did not have a clear direction at that point, to embrace universal suffrage. The two organizations had other differences as well. Although each campaigned for suffrage at both the state and national levels, the NWSA tended to work more at the national level and the AWSA more at the state level. The NWSA initially worked on

11954-417: The individual orator intends it to have. He encourages a distinction between lawful protest demonstration, nonviolent civil disobedience, and violent civil disobedience. In a letter to P. K. Rao, dated 10 September 1935, Gandhi disputes that his idea of civil disobedience was derived from the writings of Thoreau: The statement that I had derived my idea of Civil Disobedience from the writings of Thoreau

12093-484: The largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time. Although it was not a suffrage organization, the League made it clear that it stood for political equality for women, and it indirectly advanced that cause in several ways. Stanton reminded the public that petitioning was the only political tool available to women at a time when only men were allowed to vote. The League's impressive petition drive demonstrated

12232-536: The late 19th and early 20th centuries, first in various states and localities, then nationally in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution . The demand for women's suffrage began to gather strength in the 1840s, emerging from the broader movement for women's rights . In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention , the first women's rights convention, passed

12371-422: The law of nature toward the tropics." The AWSA aimed for close ties with the Republican Party, hoping that the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment would lead to a Republican push for women's suffrage. The NWSA, while determined to be politically independent, was critical of the Republicans. Anthony and Stanton wrote a letter to the 1868 Democratic National Convention that criticized Republican sponsorship of

12510-612: The leader of the American Anti-Slavery Society , said "I doubt whether a more important movement has been launched touching the destiny of the race, than this in regard to the equality of the sexes". The abolitionist movement, however, attracted only about one per cent of the population at that time, and radical abolitionists were only one part of that movement. The New York State Constitutional Convention of 1846 received petitions in support of women's suffrage from residents of at least three counties. Several members of

12649-488: The leadership of the new organization included such prominent abolitionist and women's rights activists as Lucretia Mott , Lucy Stone and Frederick Douglass . Its drive for universal suffrage , however, was resisted by some abolitionist leaders and their allies in the Republican Party , who wanted women to postpone their campaign for suffrage until it had first been achieved for male African Americans. Horace Greeley ,

12788-550: The local city councillors to "Wise up or die." More generally, protesters of particular victimless crimes often see fit to openly commit that crime. Laws against public nudity , for instance, have been protested by going naked in public , and laws against cannabis consumption have been protested by openly possessing it and using it at cannabis rallies. Some forms of civil disobedience, such as illegal boycotts , refusals to pay taxes , draft dodging , distributed denial-of-service attacks , and sit-ins , make it more difficult for

12927-399: The lower orders of Chinese, Africans, Germans and Irish, with their low ideas of womanhood to make laws for you and your daughters ... demand that women too shall be represented in government." In another article, she made a similar statement while personifying those four ethnic groups as "Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung". Lucy Stone called a suffrage meeting in New Jersey to consider

13066-458: The loyalty of many reform activists, and openly disparaging the integrity and intelligence of African Americans. After the Kansas campaign, the AERA increasingly divided into two wings, both advocating universal suffrage but with different approaches. One wing, whose leading figure was Lucy Stone, was willing for black men to achieve suffrage first, if necessary, and wanted to maintain close ties with

13205-702: The meeting to approve the resolution. Two months later, however, when the Fifteenth Amendment was in danger of becoming stalled in Congress, Stone backed away from that position and declared that "Woman must wait for the Negro." In May 1869, two days after the final AERA annual meeting, Anthony, Stanton and others formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). In November 1869, Lucy Stone , Frances Ellen Watkins Harper , Julia Ward Howe , Henry Blackwell and others, many of whom had helped to create

13344-551: The organization, in the aftermath of which two competing woman suffrage organizations were created. Partly as a result of the developing split in the women's movement, in 1868 the New England Woman Suffrage Association (NEWSA), the first major political organization in the U.S. with women's suffrage as its goal, was formed. The planners for the NEWSA's founding convention worked to attract Republican support and seated leading Republican politicians, including

13483-507: The other by Lucy Stone and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper . After years of rivalry, they merged in 1890 as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with Anthony as its leading force. The Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which was the largest women's organization at that time, was established in 1873 and also pursued women's suffrage, giving a huge boost to the movement. Hoping that

13622-825: The party's vice-presidential candidate – the first time that a woman had been proposed for federal executive office in the U.S. – and she received five votes from delegates at that convention. Women's suffrage was not a major topic within the women's rights movement at that point. Many of its activists were aligned with the Garrisonian wing of the abolitionist movement, which believed that activists should avoid political activity and focus instead on convincing others of their views with "moral suasion". Many were Quakers whose traditions barred both men and women from participation in secular political activity. A series of women's rights conventions did much to alter these attitudes. The first women's rights convention

13761-438: The penalties set out in the law. Other civil disobedients who favour the existence of government still do not believe in the legitimacy of their particular government or do not believe in the legitimacy of a particular law it has enacted. Anarchistic civil disobedients do not believe in the legitimacy of any government, so see no need to accept punishment for a violation of criminal law. An important decision for civil disobedients

13900-413: The police from effectively responding to a mass protest. Many of the same decisions and principles that apply in other criminal investigations and arrests arise also in civil disobedience cases. For example, the suspect may need to decide whether to grant a consent search of his property and whether to talk to police officers. It is generally agreed within the legal community, and is often believed within

14039-495: The privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." In 1871, the NWSA officially adopted the New Departure strategy, encouraging women to attempt to vote and to file lawsuits if denied that right. Soon hundreds of women tried to vote in dozens of localities. In some cases, actions like these preceded

14178-411: The protest." As civil disobedience is intentionally breaking the law, people engaging in civil disobedience can expect to be arrested , criminally charged , tried , and legally punished for breaking the law. Protestors have to make choices about how to respond to each of these results. Al Sharpton , a civil rights and social justice activist, says that civil disobedients "must be prepared to say

14317-661: The protesters attempted to enter the test site knowing that they faced arrest. At an announced time, one by one they crossed a line and were immediately arrested. They were put on a bus and taken to the Nye County seat of Tonopah, Nevada, and arraigned for trial before the local Justice of the Peace, that afternoon. A civil rights attorney, Francis Heisler, had volunteered to defend the accused, advising them to plead nolo contendere rather than guilty or not guilty. They were found guilty and given suspended sentences, conditional on not reentering

14456-441: The question, "Shall women alone be omitted in the reconstruction ? Shall [they] ... be ranked politically below the most ignorant and degraded men?" Henry Blackwell , Stone's husband and an AWSA officer, published an open letter to Southern legislatures assuring them that if they allowed both African Americans and women to vote, "the political supremacy of your white race will remain unchanged" and "the black race would gravitate by

14595-463: The radical wing of the abolitionist movement supported suffrage. In 1846, Samuel J. May , a Unitarian minister and radical abolitionist, vigorously supported women's suffrage in a sermon that was later circulated as the first in a series of women's rights tracts. In 1846, the Liberty League, an offshoot of the abolitionist Liberty Party , petitioned Congress to enfranchise women. A convention of

14734-468: The right to vote had been Wyoming , in 1869, followed by Utah in 1870, Colorado in 1893, Idaho in 1896, Washington in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon and Arizona in 1912, Montana in 1914, North Dakota , New York, and Rhode Island in 1917, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Michigan in 1918. In 1916, Alice Paul formed the National Woman's Party (NWP), a group focused on the passage of

14873-538: The right to vote. The basis for this practice was rooted in traditional societal views and legal doctrines. During the Middle Ages , the English common law adopted the doctrine of coverture , which held that a married woman was a " feme covert " with no legal personhood of her own and who was legally considered indistinct from her husband. Lydia Taft (1712–1778), a wealthy widow, was allowed to vote in town meetings in Uxbridge, Massachusetts in 1756. No other women in

15012-414: The same time new forms of truth will arise to test the faithfulness of the pioneer minds of that age, and so on eternally. —Angela Grimké, 1851, in a letter to Elizabeth Cady Stanton Significant barriers had to be overcome, however, before a campaign for women's suffrage could develop significant strength. One barrier was strong opposition to women's involvement in public affairs, a practice that

15151-437: The state capitol and a speech by Stanton before the state legislature. In 1857, Stone refused to pay taxes on the grounds that women were taxed without being able to vote on tax laws. The constable sold her household goods at auction until enough money had been raised to pay her tax bill. The women's rights movement was loosely structured during this period, with few state organizations and no national organization other than

15290-446: The stirrings of a new form of social action . According to Ashton Nichols , it is perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent protest. A version was taken up by the author Henry David Thoreau in his essay Civil Disobedience , and later by Gandhi in his doctrine of Satyagraha . Gandhi's Satyagraha was partially influenced and inspired by Shelley's nonviolence in protest and political action. In particular, it

15429-583: The streets to prevent the installation of pagan images in the Temple in Jerusalem . In modern times, some activists who commit civil disobedience as a group collectively refuse to sign bail until certain demands are met, such as favourable bail conditions, or the release of all the activists. This is a form of jail solidarity . There have also been many instances of solitary civil disobedience, such as that committed by Thoreau, but these sometimes go unnoticed. Thoreau, at

15568-438: The suffrage movement for several years. Arguing that the U.S. Constitution implicitly enfranchised women, this strategy relied heavily on Section 1 of the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment , which reads, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge

15707-443: The suffrage movement, later said, "No advanced step taken by women has been so bitterly contested as that of speaking in public. For nothing which they have attempted, not even to secure the suffrage, have they been so abused, condemned and antagonized." Laws that sharply restricted the independent activity of married women also created barriers to the campaign for women's suffrage. According to William Blackstone 's Commentaries on

15846-411: The suffrage movement. Restrictions like these were overcome in part by the passage of married women's property laws in several states, supported in some cases by wealthy fathers who did not want their daughters' inheritance to fall under the complete control of their husbands. Sentiment in favor of women's rights was strong within the radical wing of the abolitionist movement. William Lloyd Garrison ,

15985-408: The table". The Plowshares organization temporarily closed GCSB Waihopai by padlocking the gates and using sickles to deflate one of the large domes covering two satellite dishes. Electronic civil disobedience can include web site defacements , redirects , denial-of-service attacks , information theft and data leaks , illegal web site parodies , virtual sit-ins , and virtual sabotage . It

16124-417: The tactic was applied to Boycott when the alarm was raised about the evictions. Despite the short-term economic hardship to those undertaking this action, Boycott soon found himself isolated – his workers stopped work in the fields and stables, as well as in his house. Local businessmen stopped trading with him, and the local postman refused to deliver mail. The movement spread throughout Ireland and gave rise to

16263-420: The tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with—for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment that I quarrel—and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well that he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he will treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as

16402-523: The term "civil disobedience" has always suffered from ambiguity and in modern times, become utterly debased. Marshall Cohen notes, "It has been used to describe everything from bringing a test-case in the federal courts to taking aim at a federal official . Indeed, for Vice President Spiro Agnew it has become a code-word describing the activities of muggers, arsonists, draft evaders, campaign hecklers, campus militants, anti-war demonstrators, juvenile delinquents and political assassins." LeGrande writes that

16541-478: The term to Boycott , and eventually led to legal reform and support for Irish independence. Egypt saw a massive implementation on a nation-wide movement starting 1914 and peaking in 1919 as the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 . This was then adopted by other peoples who campaigned against European colonial rule from 1920 onwards. Zaghloul Pasha , considered the mastermind behind this massive civil disobedience,

16680-401: The test site. Howard Zinn writes, There may be many times when protesters choose to go to jail, as a way of continuing their protest, as a way of reminding their countrymen of injustice. But that is different than the notion that they must go to jail as part of a rule connected with civil disobedience. The key point is that the spirit of protest should be maintained all the way, whether it

16819-454: The time of his arrest, was not yet a well-known author, and his arrest was not covered in any newspapers in the days, weeks and months after it happened. The tax collector who arrested him rose to higher political office, and Thoreau's essay was not published until after the end of the Mexican War. Civil disobedients have chosen a variety of different illegal acts. Hugo A. Bedau writes, There

16958-449: The trial, if she had anything to say, she responded with what one historian has called "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage". She called "this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights", saying, "... you have trampled under foot every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored." The judge sentenced Anthony to pay

17097-459: The value of formal organization to the women's movement, which had traditionally resisted organizational structures, and it marked a continuation of the shift of women's activism from moral suasion to political action. Its 5000 members constituted a widespread network of women activists who gained experience that helped create a pool of talent for future forms of social activism, including suffrage. The Eleventh National Women's Rights Convention ,

17236-497: The women's movement, she presented a modified version of the New Departure strategy. Instead of asking the courts to declare that women had the right to vote, she asked Congress itself to declare that the Constitution implicitly enfranchised women. The committee rejected her suggestion. The NWSA at first reacted enthusiastically to Woodhull's sudden appearance on the scene. Stanton in particular welcomed Woodhull's proposal to assemble

17375-448: The women's movement. Over Anthony's objections, leaders of the movement agreed to suspend women's rights activities during the Civil War in order to focus on the abolition of slavery. In 1863, Anthony and Stanton organized the Women's Loyal National League , the first national women's political organization in the U.S. It collected nearly 400,000 signatures on petitions to abolish slavery in

17514-617: Was a native middle-class, Azhar graduate, political activist, judge, parliamentary and ex-cabinet minister whose leadership brought Christian and Muslim communities together as well as women into the massive protests. Along with his companions of Wafd Party , who have achieved an independence of Egypt and a first constitution in 1923. Civil disobedience is one of the many ways people have revolted against what they deem to be unfair laws. It has been used in many nonviolent resistance movements in India ( Mahatma Gandhi 's campaigns for independence from

17653-519: Was also taken up by many movements of civil disobedience, which drew from the concept of rebellion to voluntary servitude the foundation of its instrument of struggle. Étienne de La Boétie was one of the first to theorize and propose the strategy of non-cooperation, and thus a form of nonviolent disobedience, as a really effective weapon. In the lead-up to the Glorious Revolution in Britain—when

17792-461: Was eventually renamed "Essay on Civil Disobedience". After his landmark lectures were published in 1866, the term began to appear in numerous sermons and lectures relating to slavery and the war in Mexico. Thus, by the time Thoreau's lectures were first published under the title "Civil Disobedience", in 1866, four years after his death, the term had achieved fairly widespread usage. It has been argued that

17931-572: Was evicted, rather than resorting to violence, everyone in the locality should shun them. Following this Captain Charles Boycott , the land agent of an absentee landlord in County Mayo , Ireland , was subject to social ostracism organized by the Irish Land League in 1880. Boycott attempted to evict eleven tenants from his land. While Parnell's speech did not refer to land agents or landlords,

18070-502: Was focused on the illegitimacy of laws claimed to be "divine" in origin, both the "divine rights of kings" and "divine rights of man", and the legitimacy of laws acknowledged to be made by human beings. Following the Peterloo massacre of 1819, the poet Percy Shelley wrote the political poem The Mask of Anarchy later that year, that begins with the images of what he thought to be the unjust forms of authority of his time—and then imagines

18209-537: Was followed two weeks later by the Rochester Women's Rights Convention of 1848 , which featured many of the same speakers and likewise voted to support women's suffrage. It was the first women's rights convention to be chaired by a woman, a step that was considered to be radical at the time. That meeting was followed by the Ohio Women's Convention at Salem in 1850 , the first women's rights convention to be organized on

18348-403: Was introduced by Stanton. When her husband, a well-known social reformer, learned that she intended to introduce this resolution, he refused to attend the convention and accused her of acting in a way that would turn the proceedings into a farce. Lucretia Mott, the main speaker, was also disturbed by the proposal. The resolution was adopted only after Frederick Douglass , an abolitionist leader and

18487-431: Was making a choice. He admits that government may express the will of the majority but it may also express nothing more than the will of elite politicians. Even a good form of government is "liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it". If a government did express the voice of most people, this would not compel the obedience of those who disagree with what is said. The majority may be powerful but it

18626-410: Was not fully accepted even among reform activists. Only after fierce debate were women accepted as members of the American Anti-Slavery Society at its convention of 1839, and the organization split at its next convention when women were appointed to committees. Opposition was especially strong against the idea of women speaking to audiences of both men and women. Frances Wright , a Scottish woman,

18765-505: Was pivotal for the suffrage movement and contributed significantly to the broader struggle for women's rights, which Stanton called "the greatest revolution the world has ever known or ever will know." They had complementary skills: Anthony excelled at organizing while Stanton had an aptitude for intellectual matters and writing. Stanton, who was homebound with several children during this period, wrote speeches that Anthony delivered to meetings that she herself organized. Together they developed

18904-514: Was published in the Westminster Review . Heralding the women's movement in the U.S., Taylor's essay helped to initiate a similar movement in Britain. Her essay was reprinted as a women's rights tract in the U.S. and was sold for decades. Wendell Phillips , a prominent abolitionist and women's rights advocate, delivered a speech at the second national convention in 1851 called "Shall Women Have

19043-446: Was reported in newspapers across the country, resulting in what one scholar has called "political theater" that badly damaged the reputation of the suffrage movement. The Supreme Court, in 1875, put an end to the New Departure strategy by ruling in Minor v. Happersett that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone". The NWSA decided to pursue

19182-622: Was subjected to sharp criticism for delivering public lectures in the U.S. in 1826 and 1827. When the Grimké sisters , who had been born into a slave-holding family in South Carolina , spoke against slavery throughout the northeast in the mid-1830s, the ministers of the Congregational Church , a major force in that region, published a statement condemning their actions. Despite the disapproval, in 1838 Angelina Grimké spoke against slavery before

19321-528: Was the Seneca Falls Convention , a regional event held on July 19 and 20, 1848, in Seneca Falls in the Finger Lakes region of New York . Five women called the convention, four of whom were Quaker social activists , including the well-known Lucretia Mott . The fifth was Elizabeth Cady Stanton , who had discussed the need to organize for women's rights with Mott several years earlier. Stanton, who came from

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