Assignment #9
"Judicial decisions are of greater or less authority as precedents, according to circumstances. That this should be so, accords both with common sense, and the customary understanding of the legal profession."

What this statement means is that judgements to cases are very important. That is because what they do is set precedents in place, which allows future cases to be compared with prior cases and verdicts can be placed accordingly. It can also be said that they may prove precedents wrong and allow new laws to be written based upon the new discoveries found. In all, judgements are proven to hold a lot of clout in that what is determined in a case in the future.

Assignment #8
"The wife who inherits no property holds about the same legal position that does the slave on the southern plantation. She can own nothing, sell nothing. She has no right even to the wages she earns; her person, her time, her services are the property of another. She cannot testify, in many cases, against her husband. She can get no redress for wrongs in her own name in any court of justice. She can neither sue nor be sued. She is not held morally responsible for any crime committed in the presence of her husband, so completely is her very existence supposed by the law to be merged in that of another.”
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton

 What is meant by this quote is that women were virtually slaves. Since they did not have any rights such as to own land, sell anything or even work they were reduced to servants. They had to rely solely on men to provide everything for them. Which meant that they had to do what ever they were told to do. Women of this era had to obey men because they themselves were not people and their entire existence was merged with that of another.

 “It was a long, lean, gaunt, shivelled looking creature, stretched out on two chairs, and his legs resting on the prostrate bust of Washington; projecting from behind was a cat o’ nine tails knotted at the ends; around his person he wore a belt in which were stuck those truly American implements, a bowie knife, dirk, and revolving pistol; behind him was a whipping post, with a naked woman tied to it, and a strong- armed American citizen in the act of scourging her livid flesh with a cow skin. At his feet was another group;—a sale going on, of human cattle, and around the auctioneer’s table were gathered therespectability,…” Fredrick Douglas

 What Douglass does with this quote is he tries to show the brutality of slavery. He does this by showing the slavers as creatures who tormented and sold slaves as if they were cattle. What he also does is with this short quote is show the resolve of the slaves. He shows how they have grown accustom to these unbearable conditions and how they no longer resist. They gather around the table not forced but by choice because they know there is no hope in resistance. Their spirit has been destroyed.

Assignment #7
"The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army; and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens" 

 What this passage is stating is that the men who are serving the state are being used as tools. They are not desired for their brains, only for their body because their body can be shaped and molded into what ever weapon the state needs for that time. The author goes as far as to compare them to materials for building such as wood or stones this is because these materials are easily manipulated. So men who serve the state basically serve the same purpose. They are what ever they are needed to be for the time and the basically are the backbone of the state. They do these things not for any sort of glory or acknowledgement its actually the opposite. They are regarded as lesser men for being nothing but tools, dogs of the state.


Part I







Benjamin Lay, a Quaker strongly opposed slavery. He saw it as a crime unforgivable by god. This is because he believes that god created all men to be equal so if they are equal why are some men slaves while others are free. This can be related to what Thoreau believes because he believes in civil disobedience so he would support the claims of the Quaker and goes so far as to tell them to challenge the in-just system, in a nonviolent peaceful way.






Harriet Tubman could be considered a patriot by many. This is because she risked her life innumerable amounts of times and face immeasurable odds to help save her fellow slave. She escaped slavery and she could have thought of only her self and sought refuge somewhere safe but no. She thought of those who were still in bondage and she wanted to save as many people as she could. This takes Thoreau's idea and expands it because not only was she disobeying the government but she was basically stealing the property of slave owners and cutting them loose. She embodied civil disobedience and was a hero and the Moses of the slaves.

 Part II


John Brown was a man who held 21 men, 6 slaves and 15 white men on raid of a federal armory. he did this in order to lead an armed insurrection throughout the south in order to free slaves. Thoreau's idea's were blown greatly out of proportion here. He would not have been okay with leading an armed insurrection even though its end results could prove to be fruitful. He would have wanted a less violent aprroach, bloodshed should be a last option if one at all.