Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis

The pursuit of happiness may sometimes require a person to oppose laws that they find to be unjust. Freedom of speech is a protected right of all citizens of the United States, but there are times when people also have to take action to make their voices heard. As long as doing so does not encroach upon the legal rights of others, peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society. As Henry David Thoreau states in his essay, Civil Disobedience,"There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." If a democracy is a government created by the people and for the people, when it fails to do this well, the people have a responsibility to point it out.

He stated, “Why should me and other so-called ‘negroes’ go 10,000 miles away from home, here in America, to drop bombs and bullets on other innocent brown people who’s never bothered us and I will say directly: No, I will not go.” To participate would have violated his personal and religious beliefs, and with such a strong conviction, there was no choice for him. Willing to face prison, condemned by much of the American public, and stripped of his boxing title, his decision was not made because it was easy or convenient. Ali felt compelled to peacefully combat something he saw as unjust, and he was willing to suffer the