Letter From Birmingham Jail Compare/Contrast Essay

In the two writings The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions, by Abraham Lincoln and Letter from a Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King Jr.; each author explores the complications of their society when they lived and how they view the laws present. For the two writings, the authors explore the levels of ability the people of America have to change laws that they do not see fit for their democracy. In the First Amendment of the Constitution, the people are given the right to petition their government if they feel their rights are being compromised, while also reserving the right to assemble to show their unhappiness with the law or laws created. Each one of these men does not embody the same ideals, causing a conflict of thoughts on how Americans should be allowed to petition their government. The same could be asked about how the government is required to act when they are being petitioned. At age twenty eight, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech in Springfield, Illinois to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois on January twenty seventh of eighteen thirty eight. In this

did not view the changing of laws as something that should take time and patience. In his writing, Letter from Birmingham Jail, King discusses how he went to battle injustice that was present in the debate on rights for blacks and being treated equally to white individuals. The problem he faced he faced was that he was not seeing a change to these problems that were persisting, and being met with unreasonable answers. At one point he alludes to Nazi Germany, as a way to show the severity of the lack of representation that he and other blacks are being slammed with in a society of what he calls White Moderates. He declares that these people are telling those petitioning to be patient and to let time solve the problems, which he counteracts with the saying that time is neutral and will not fix the problem, the people