Rights for Lincoln and King
A good tool for understanding their disagreement is the distinction between process and substance, or means and ends. The process refers to the procedures that we follow in making and enforcing laws, our ‘means’ of making laws. The substance is the rightness of the content or outcome of those laws, the ‘ends’ of those laws.
This distinction between procedural and substantive justice is at the heart of many disagreements about rights and political conflict in general.
Lincoln argues that the process is more important than the substance of rights. He is almost callous in describing some of the criminals whose rights have been violated as being deserving of their fate and claiming that we are better off with them dead. The substance, the outcome, is not what concerns him, it is the procedure, or process, by which they ended up dead that is the problem. His concern is not with the guys getting hanged and burned, it is with the good citizen who, gradually, over time, starts to figure that the law is a sucker’s game. He is concerned with loyal citizens losing their affection for the law.
King is concerned with and argues mainly from the basis of the substance of the law. As Charles pointed out, he also makes a process argument, that the laws are illegitimate because the process excluded people that by the letter of the law had a right to vote. But his main objection is deeper and he would hardly be forced to change his argument if segregationist laws could win a fair vote (which in some places they could have). His claim is that the substance of these laws is unjust, regardless of the process by which they were made.
In Lincoln’s speech, obeying the law, even if, or especially if, it is unjust is the highest duty of the citizen. King turns this on its head. Doing the right thing, the just thing, even if, and especially if you know you will be punished for it, is the highest duty of a citizen. This is because it arouses the citizens to the unjustness of the law.
Lincoln’s speech could have been given in Rome without too much alteration. He argues that we should protect these rights out of fealty to our forefathers, to honor their sacrifices.
King makes an argument based more on a very un-classical idea, the idea that all men are equal in the sight of God.
Both of them use religion, and specifically, the Christian religion, in their argument.
King cites Augustine to put substantive justice, the justness of the laws outcome, over formal justice, the justice of the process by which the law was made.
Lincoln uses the Christian religion in a novel way to ask us to imagine seeing Washington on the day of the resurrection. He asks us to image being able to look Washington in the face and be able to say that we faithfully preserved our inheritance form him, our “father,” so to speak.
I find this a really interesting twist because it is essentially a pagan argument. The Roman’s justified everything in terms of living up to our ancestor’s expectations and explicitly deified illustrious ancestors and political leaders (like Caesar) to legitimate the laws and justify sacrifice. Lincoln uses a peculiarity of Christian doctrine to get an essentially pagan effect.
Lincoln’s is “it’s the law” and King’s is “it’s God’s will,” (or at least the Judeo-Christian God).
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3 comments:
In these two famous speeches each person takes a very different path in attempting to make their points. Lincoln takes the more old-fashioned "God bless America" style using our forefathers and the rights they fought for as his references. King takes a more modern christian-like approach, aruing that what is important is doing the right thing not ensuring old laws. Both of these arguments come from two historic Americans who are frequently talked about in today's society. Even though they believe in completely different formats for justice, both speeches were extremely effective. Lincoln saying that he basically wanted people to stick with what we have just because of our history worked for the people at that time because that was the mindset they needed to have then. Dr. King's argument that people needed to be more worried about what was morally right other than what was the law worked for a more developed nation, that at that time needed to understand that the law is not always right. These are two excellent and highly recognized speeches, but more importantly the way they were given is acredited to the circumstance. These two men saw what needed to happen, or at least what they believed, and did their best to make America understand.
Mike Moore
Paper #7
I would like to agree with nick on his point. In these two speeches, President Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., are trying to define exactly what a "just law" is. Lincoln sees a just law as one that is being followed by everyone no matter the consequences or circumstances. Dr. King on the other hand sees that a just law is only required to be followed by people that it applies to and takes a Christian approach to appeal to his critics.
I believe that both of these famous people are correct in what they say however, both arguments have flaws in them that can be seen. In Lincoln's argument he says that we need to just follow the laws because in the previous years they have worked. It is kind of like the "if it ain't broke don’t fix it" saying, and President Lincoln is behind it fully. However he needs to realize that times change and the laws that applied in the past do not apply in today's times and those in Dr. Martin Luther King’s time. However, when it comes to Dr. King he believes that the laws are always not morally right. For example, in his times he was dealing with racism and segregation. There were laws supporting the happenings at this time and they were being taken completely out of context in extreme cases and needed to be revised. So when this happened he realized that the laws were not morally right and that they needed to change. All in all I believe that these two men were right in what they believed, however, they did not realize the impact that it was going to have on the future generations to come. Times change and as they do laws will change according to circumstances. In Lincoln’s day Racism and segregation were understood, but in Dr. King’s time it was morally wrong and needed to be changed.
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