Many people say, "The law is the law. Period." They say that people who break an evil law are worse that those who made it. Do you agree?
Answer:
No. I don't agree with those "law loving people".
No, I would not have. The law can be challenged...
I don't think I would turn myself in,sorry. BTW: The South is not to blame for slavery,they came here to Rhode Island first and were distributed throughout the country.One of the most popular Ivy League Colleges (Brown University) was built on the backs of slaves.So people here up North could have done something also.
Do you mean in the Civil War or 10,000 years ago in Egypt?
No, I would have helped them escape...at least I hope I would have. I guess you can't absolutly know what you would do in a situation that you have never been in. I really hope I would have helped.
No. The ones making the laws are no more human that I. If I find their laws unethical I do not find it necessary to follow.
I would no more have turned over fuguitive slaves as I would fuguitive jews in ww2.
however, I would be prepared to die for my actions.
NO I WOULD NOT BE A SNITCH B'CAUSE SNITCHES GET KILLED. dONT U EVER WONDERED HOW ALL THOSE CEMEMTERYS GOT FILLED?
If I lived in the north when the fugitive slave laws were passed then I would definitely protect fugitive slaves. I think I would protect them if I lived in the south too, but I guess nobody really knows unless they are in that exact situation.
I hope you are not trying to compare that to arresting an illegal immigrant by the INS. Those two things are miles apart.
If I was back in that time, raised as someone in that time, then maybe I would because that would be the morally correct thing to do at the time.
Asking me now, no, I would not turn them in.
These types of questions are idle speculation, if you can come up with a current law that has a similar moral high ground issue with it as that one, then please, post that one.
I don't think I could blame someone for trying to secure their own freedom, so no, I wouldn't turn in a runaway slave. If, however, there were legal channels they could have followed to regain freedom, but chose not to, it might have been a different story.
I guess I bring up that point because I have no problem calling an illegal immigrant a criminal.
The law is the law but personal beliefs are what challenge them and some are changed. I would not turn in those fugitive slaves and I also wouldn't turn in someone who bombed an abortion clinic or killed a doctor who performed abortions. All I can do about it is keep writing to my congressman and senator and urge them to submit laws to challenge Roe V Wade.
Nope.
I would have been a "John Brown" abolitionist and would have provided a stop on the "Underground Railroad".
Sometimes a little civil disobedience can be a good thing.
No I would not I would have hid them and helped them to freedom. Would you have turned in Jews to the Nazi's?
I don't believe that's the law anymore. At least, it's not here.
The law is the law, but when it conflicts with my morals, I go with morals. Do you think that makes me a good person, even without knowing what my morals are?
No, not really considering that slavery is illegal dumba**!
The law (The Constitution) also states that all men are created equal and should have certain inalienable rights such as life, LIBERTY, and the persuit of happiness.
So technically, having someone as a slave WAS breaking the law, since slaves were being denied their liberty. The slave owners were the ones who broke the laws. The "fugitive slaves" were only exercising their right to liberty. A right they all should've had under the Constitution.
Of course we must obey the law and be upstanding citizens but at the same time we do have our conscience and we must stand up to what we believe is right and unjust.. Slaves enduring harsh working conditions and inhumane treatment was clearly inmoral; Owning people as slaves was not only cruel but it was a social injustice..
Well, I hoped that I wouldn't turn them in, I really wouldn't know since I wasn't around back then. Personally though, I wouldn't. I would've assisted them every step of the way.
Yeah I probably would. I dont feel like the law is the law but I just will not help someone that cannot help me.
Depends. I don't think it's very wise to ask a question out of it's contemporary perspective. It changes the whole environment of the topic, and thus renders it null and void. Sure. We would all like to be the unsung heroes of the Underground Railroad, but, who is to say we would have believed the same as we do now, had we been raised in that time period? It's not an accurate scenario.
a slave is very different than an illegal immigrant.
Its hard to say. Now, of course, we know slavery is a violation of simple human rights and decency. So now, living in this day, I would emphatically say, No, I would not. But when people are raised in certain settings and are raised to believe that certain culture norms are just "the way it is," it is hard to say if I would have during slavery.
As for "evil" laws, I believe we answer to a higher innate morality than the "law-makers." I believe we are to abide by the laws as long as it does not go against our innate morality of right and wrong.
I totally disagree because "people" make the laws, and people obviously make mistakes, and that is evident in the enslavement of people. I would have definitely kept fugitive slaves a secret if I would have lived back then. I'm glad you posted this question. I'd like to see others' responses to this. I know there are going to be some idiotic submissions saying they would have turned in fugitive "SLAVES."
I pray that I would have had the courage to break the law and help save others, risking my own life in the process.
I think we're kidding ourselves to think we can guess what we'd have done, because we totally ignore the societal influence on our thinking.
Personally, as a Libertarian, I'd like to think I'd have helped organize the escapes, but I'm not so sure. It's possible that I would have accepted the commonly held belief that the slaves were not human beings, and therefore not covered by my Libertarian principles. I can't honestly say.
It makes it harder to know because we've seen other instances of de-humanization before and after the mid 19th Century. Jews and Slavs were dehumanized in Germany in the 1930's, and some otherwise good people were able to turn their heads and not see what was going on around them. I spent enough time in Germany to have gotten to know a few of them myself. There were even some who denied their own bloodlines to escape the persecution, but didn't even speak out against it.
I can tell you this from experience: there's no amount of philosophizing and training that prepares you for being shot at. There are some circumstances that you just don't know what you will do until you are there.
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