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About this Blog

During the semester, I shall post course material and students will comment on it. Students are also free to comment on any aspect of American politics, either current or historical. There are only two major limitations: no coarse language, and no derogatory comments about people at the Claremont Colleges. This blog is on the open Internet, so post nothing that you would not want a potential employer to see. Syllabus: http://gov20h.blogspot.com/2023/08/draft-introduction-to-american-politics.html

Monday, September 30, 2013

Followup

Things move fast in the digital age.  The article for which I was taking a phone call today is already online here.  Thanks for your patience this afternoon.

Congress, the Constitution, and the Federalist


Consequences of the Three-Fifths Clause.  From William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery:
Five of the first seven presidents were slaveholders, for thirty-two of the nation’s first thirty-six years forty of its first forty-eight, fifty of its first sixty four, the nation’s president was a slaveholder. The powerful office of Speaker of the House was held by a slaveholder for twenty-eight of the nation’s first thirty-five years. The president pro tem of the Senate was virtually always a slaveholder. The majority of the cabinet members and — very important — of justices of the Supreme Court were slaveholders. The slaveholding Chief Justice Roger Taney, appointed by slaveholding President Andrew Jackson to succeed the slaveholding John Marshall, would serve all the way through the decades before the war into the years of the Civil War itself; it would be a radical change of the kind slaveholders feared when in 1863, President Lincoln would appoint the anti-slavery politician Salmon P. Chase of Ohio to succeed Taney.



May We Be Foolish?: Looking at the Constitution with Fresh Eyes

When it comes to the US Constitution, contrary to the famous Steve Jobs quotation, “Stay hungry, stay foolish” it seems that America is resigned to a generally broad interpretation of the document. We are foolish, but not in the way Jobs was suggesting—we are foolishly uncritical of the way the Constitution has been interpreted and applied to law. In America’s Constitution Akhil Reed Amar brings to light just how narrow some of the current interpretations of the Constitution are and how a broader interpretation could be beneficial to the US both within a foreign and domestic context.

It seems intuitively wise, when attempting to apply a document that is 226 years old to law and government in a modern world, to “tread lightly” but that light step should not be at the cost of thoughtful consideration of the benefits of seemingly unconventional interpretations. When in comes to the US Constitution, parts of Section 8 and the spirit behind which some of the economic regulations were set forth deserve to be given a second look. Amar first points out the “Commerce Clause”: “power to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several Sates, and with the Indian Tribes”. Amar writes, “modern lawyers and judges typically refer to these words as the ‘commerce clause’ and today’s Supreme Court has moved toward reading the paragraph as applicable only to economic interactions” (107). Amar also includes a note that cites several articles discussing the scope of the commerce clause but concludes that “none of these interpretations comes to grips with the basic inadequacy of a purely economic reading of ‘commerce’” (542) Not surprisingly, Amar is correct. Which should cause one to question if whether or not the current interpretation of Section 8 is too narrow, and if this narrow interpretation is being set forth because a sense of fear or an unwillingness to exert resources or energy.  As Amar states, “a broader reading of ‘Commerce’ in this clause would seem to make better sense of the framers’ general goals by enabling Congress to regulate all interactions (and altercations) with foreign nations and Indian tribes—interactions that, if improperly handled by a single state acting on its own might lead to needless wars or otherwise compromise the interests of sister states.” (107) In a modern context, some parts of this broad interpretation would not make sense. For example, California, by itself probably would not be able to start a conflict with a foreign state that would reach the level of war unchecked. However, the idea that this clause, under a broader interpretation,  gives Congress the power to regulate all interactions and altercations with foreign nations is strikingly relevant. For example, regarding the conflict in Syria, this clause, under a broad interpretation would give Congress the power to regulate a potential altercation “that might lead to needless wars or otherwise compromise the interests” of the nation. But without a broad interpretation, “it is not entirely clear whence the federal government would derive its needed power to deal with the noneconomic international incidents” (108) The merit of this broader interpretation must be considered, especially since the rest of Clause 8 goes on to discuss matters that are clearly related, especially under this broader reading, such as “issues of war, armies, navies and militias.” (108) These topics are not directly related to “commerce” and economic issues, but rather diplomatic and relations issues. Like many of the documents written by the Founding Fathers that started at the roots of the country and now serve as pillars of our government, one must consider the spirit behind what was written and recognize that it is not always prudent to neither take literally what was set forth nor confine the words to too specific of an interpretation. With this in mind, the economic standards that were “sketched out in Jay/Publius’s Federalist No. 2”(108) are prime examples of the need to take the spirit of the words and apply them to a modern context.

“Uniform bankruptcy rules would stabilize interstate lending practices and spur a national market in negotiable instruments, just as continental standards for copyrights and patents would create a broad New World market for authors and inventors. Standard weights and measures, federal post offices and post roads, a continental money supply alongside uniform regulations of foreign currency—all these would help knit far-flung Americans together, economically and socially” (108)

With a consideration of the merits of a free market, the spirit behind the economic standards described in Federalist No.2 is the presence of some regulation from the government. Is a free market really “free” if there are regulations? It is perhaps, not. Did deregulations pull the country into a downward economic spiral, leading to a recession? Perhaps, yes. The point is not to attempt to “point a finger” at any one factor that contributed to the current economic failings of the country but to rather call attention to the spirit with which the men who wrote the documents that the country was founded upon—and let that influence the way the words are applied to the law.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

The real power of the 3/5 compromise

In reading Amar today, I became especially interested in the emphasis he places on the 3/5 Compromise in not only allowing for the ratification of the Constitution but also in greatly affecting the power balance in the government following this time. The power of Southern states extended to the control of the Supreme Court at the time and how these respective cases were decided. Since I'm also a Supreme Court case junkie, I reread the Dred Scott v Sandford case today and found a few sections that are interesting to see how the Constitution was and is interepreted in promoting a certain agenda. I think it is important to understand how various Court's interpret the same sections of the Constitution in differing and often conflicting ways. It's also important to note the number of cases overturned in the years followed, as it shows the fluidity of the Constitution in application, though the Constitution is usually viewed as a extremely stable document.

"There are two clauses in the Constitution which point directly and specifically to the negro race as a separate class of persons, and show clearly that they were not regarded as a portion of the people or citizens of the Government then formed."


"Here the line of distinction is drawn in express words. Persons of color, in the judgment of Congress, were not included in the wordcitizens, and they are described as another and different class of persons, and authorized to be employed, if born in the United States...."



The full text can be found at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933t.html

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

The Constitution and the Federalist

Ron Chernow's biography undercuts the notion that Alexander Hamilton was a well-born defender of privilege. Here is a passage summing up what the born-out-of-wedlock Hamilton and his brother faced in their youth:
Let us pause briefly to tally the grim catalog of disasters that had befallen these two boys between 1765 and 1769: their father had vanished, their mother had died, their cousin and supposed protector had committed bloody suicide, and their aunt, uncle, and grandmother had all died. James, 16, and Alexander, 14, were now left alone, largely friendless and penniless. At every step in their rootless, topsy-turvy existence, they had been surrounded by failed, broken, embittered people. Their short lives had been shadowed by a stupefying sequence of bankruptcies, marital separations, deaths, scandals, and disinheritance. Such repeated shocks must have stripped Alexander Hamilton of any sense that life was fair, that he existed in a benign universe, or that he could ever count on help from anyone. That this abominable childhood produced such a strong, productive, self-reliant human being -- that this fatherless adolescent could have ended up a founding father of a country he had not yet even seen -- seems little short of miraculous.
The story set to music:


Concerns of war, peace, and security
Controlling power
Federalist v. Anti-Federalist

Monday, September 23, 2013

Constitution I



If you like Amar's book, you can watch him talk about it on video here.
Read these provisions from an actual constitution. How would you appraise them?
ARTICLE 118. Citizens have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality. ...

ARTICLE 119. Citizens have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people.

ARTICLE 120. Citizens have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.

ARTICLE 121. Citizens have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native language...

ARTICLE 122. Women are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life. The possibility of exercising these rights is ensured to women by granting them an equal right with men to work, payment for work, rest and leisure, social insurance and education, and by state protection of the interests of mother and child, prematernity and maternity leave with full pay, and the provision of a wide network of maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens.

ARTICLE 123. Equality of rights of citizens irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

ARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church is separated from the state, and the school from the church. ...

ARTICLE 128. The inviolability of the homes of citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by law.
Contrast the US Constitution with the Confederate Constitution.

Can't get enough?  A wonderful lecture by Yale history professor Joanne Freeman (Pomona `84):

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Democrats use House of Cards to take on the GOP

House of Cards took actual Washington politics, when congressional Democrats used it to mock the GOP this week. 

Followup

Joshua asked about Lincoln's comment on slavery early in the Civil War.  Here is a passage from his letter to Horace Greeley on August 22, 1862:
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same timedestroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
His war aims would soon change with the Emancipation Proclamation.  He explained in his second State of the Union message:
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.

This is a test

You can write stuff here.

Suppose you want to link to budget data.  Do it here.

Civil Religion

In June 2006, Barack Obama gave an important speech on religion in politics. See prepared text here and video clip here.

Civil Religion

This second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Following Up from Yesterday

From the "first reports are always wrong" file, a RealClearPolitics summary: [Click links in the story for other examples.]
During the chaotic aftermath of Monday’s deadly shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, two major news networks misidentified the alleged gunman and issued retractions shortly afterward, part of an early coverage period marked by confusion and misinformation. It was also a reprise of erroneous reporting seen after the Sandy Hook and Boston Marathon attacks.

CBS News’ Charlie Kaye tweeted shortly after 12:50 p.m. that Senior Correspondent John Miller “says shooter was retired Navy chief petty officer, about 50 years old.” Kaye, again relaying information from Miller, then falsely identified the shooter as Rollie Chance.
The reports were instantly retweeted and regurgitated on cable news and various digital outlets and newspaper websites. They were followed by subsequent reports that Rollie Chance had been recently laid off from his job.

Just eight minutes later, however, CBS retracted the report and deleted the incorrect tweets.

Shortly after the retraction, this appeared on the official NBC News Twitter account: “Identity of shooter at D.C. Navy Yard is Rollie Chance, sources say.” Five minutes later, NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd issued a retraction on Twitter: “NBC News: we are now NOT reporting name of shooter; retracting that report. deleting those tweets.”
By country (2006), belief that evolution is true or false:



Gallup surveys on evolution:
Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of humans is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question. About a third of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with God's guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process.
Trend: Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings? 1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, 2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process, 3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so
Gallup has asked Americans to choose among these three explanations for the origin and development of human beings 11 times since 1982. Although the percentages choosing each view have varied from survey to survey, the 46% who today choose the creationist explanation is virtually the same as the 45% average over that period -- and very similar to the 44% who chose that explanation in 1982. The 32% who choose the "theistic evolution" view that humans evolved under God's guidance is slightly below the 30-year average of 37%, while the 15% choosing the secular evolution view is slightly higher (12%).

Monday, September 16, 2013

For those who don't (or do!) watch The Newsroom

First Writing Assignment

Pick one of the following:

1. Find a recent (since June 2013) article pointing to a problem that Publius anticipated. (You may search newspapers at news.google.com.) Explain how The Federalist sheds light on the story. In this instance, is the political system working as the Founders hoped?

2. Identify a significant claim by Tocqueville that was either incorrect from the start or no longer applies to the United States.

3. Here are some current proposed amendments to the United States Constitution. Pick one, weigh the arguments for and against, and explain your position.
  • SJ Res 3: setting congressional term limits 
  • SJ Res 4: defining citizenship 
  • SJ Res 19: allowing greater regulation of campaign finance 
  • SJ Res 20: requiring a balanced budget 
  • HJ Res 40: defining the rights of crime victims 
  • HR Res 52: regarding constitutional conventions 
  • HJ Res 54: respecting the use of foreign law in US courts 
Instructions:
  • Whichever essay you choose, do research to document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head.  
  • Essays should be typed, stapled, double-spaced, and no more than three pages long. I will not read past the third page. 
  • Put your name on a cover sheet. Do not identify yourself on the text pages. 
  • Cite your sources with endnotes, which should be in a standard style (e.g., Turabian or Chicago Manual of Style). Endnote pages do not count against the page limit. 
  • Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. 
  • Turn in essays via Sakai by the start of class, Wednesday, September 25. Late essays will drop a gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that. I will grant no extensions except for illness or emergency.

Civic Culture and American Exceptionalism

Who was Tocqueville?
Civic Culture

  • Individualism
  • Patriotism
    • Comparative data
    • "Nothing is more annoying inthe ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the American" (p. 237).
  • Religion
    • "The religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on arrival in the United States." (p. 295 of Lawrence-Mayer ed.) 
    • Recent data.
    • A graph
    • In June 2006, Barack Obama gave an important speech on religion in politics. See prepared text here and video clip here.
  • Service
    • Tocqueville on American democracy: "Under its sway it is not especially the things accomplished by the public administration that are great, but rather those things done without its help and beyond its sphere" (p. 244)
    • Where people volunteer
    • Where people give (go to p. 10)

Civil Religion

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Philadelphia, Galesburg, and Gettysburg

The Declaration (hyperlink versions)

Text of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Lincoln-Douglas Galesburg debate video
 -- Can you tell where the re-enactor screwed up?

From the Cornerstone Speech by Alexander Stephens:
The prevailing ideas entertained by him [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidels powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. He has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
Gettysburg Address:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

President Obama's Speech on Syria

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/running-transcript-president-obamas-sept-10-speech-on-syria/2013/09/10/a8826aa6-1a2e-11e3-8685-5021e0c41964_story.html

Obama gave a speech on the crisis today calling for targeted strikes. I think he did a pretty good job of walking a fine line in an extremely difficult situation... Not sure if there is any single "right" answer at this point unfortunately.

Putin Sings!

Actual video, not from Colbert, The Daily Show, or The Onion.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Both Thomas Jefferson and MLK argue that when certain unalienable rights have been withheld from a group of people, said people have not only the justification but the obligation to combat the injustices. But where is the distinction between a personal opinion, or that of one group, and a true case of injustice? These men both argue that political and moral offenses must be remedied; in each case the result is an ideological, controversial revolution which resulted in physical confrontation. They argue that the rights of man supersede the rights of an unjust government, but where is the boundary between an act that is offensive and one that is oppressive? Further, should there even need to be distinctions? Or should any feelings of mistreatment justify the need for reform?

This is simply the result of pondering in my dorm, obviously the causes championed by Jefferson and King were some of the most prominent and warranted in the recent history of humanity. However, what causes now warrant action, and how does one decide which causes deserve more immediate action? While democracy and civil rights in America have developed quickly compared to the rest of the world, and continue to attempt to keep up with hot button social issues, other countries are still struggling with basic human rights. Do we put precedence on those countries before we concern ourselves with the social struggles of other groups? How does one categorize and place scale on the suffering of some groups compared to others?


The Declaration

The Declaration

The real Abraham Lincoln on Euclid and the Declaration:
One would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.
The movie version:

Thursday, September 5, 2013

On "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr.

 After reading King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," I was able to gain a deeper perspective on the basic principles of civil disobedience and the founding ideas of the nonviolence movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. His words of a just law versus an unjust law clearly supports the invalidity of the segregation laws in Alabama. He explains that "an unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself." King gives a different example that pertains more to the state of the African Americans in the 1960s and writes that "a  law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law." Because African Americans were for the most part prevented from registering to vote, they had no way to partake in devising such a law. He argues the irrationality of the segregation law in a legal standpoint by stating that the people who are the most affected by it had no say in the "democratic" process. King further supports his argument using the words of St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all" and the theory of the natural law proposed by St. Thomas Aquinas, which is of the moral standpoint. 

 Throughout the letter, King's persona is shown to be gracious yet strong and understanding yet indignant. He writes that "I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much." King sees the urgency of the equality of rights for colored people and how the exhausting wait of 340 years for their rights has left the people at a stage of internal degradation. He staunchly states "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice..." King laments over the fact that even among those who believe in equality and integration, many are refusing to step out of the crowd and stand up for the rights of all due to the perseverance of peace and avoidance of violence. However King does not convey contempt or hatred towards any group of people but towards the institutions of racism, segregation, and inequality. 

He shows grace even towards the white church that has failed to assist and support the rights of the colored people. He writes "I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure." However, even after seeing otherwise, King testifies "In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church." 

Similar to Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, the "Letter" contains religious diction and biblical references that is a testament to his background as a reverend. He writes about the struggle of early Christians and their persecution for their beliefs in Jesus Christ who was an "extremist for love". King addresses civil disobedience that was practiced by Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They refused to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar due to a higher moral law they desired to obey, which was of the God of the Israelites in the Old Testament of the Bible.