ABSTRACT
Civil disobedience is often hailed as an eloquent method of protest, a way of arousing the moral conscience of society. But it has been used by some students and black militants as a weapon in an assault on democratic institutions. A civil disobedient would be a person who does not legally qualify for conscientious objector status, yet openly and publicly refuses to be drafted in order to dramatize his opposition to war. An important change occurs in the concept of civil disobedience when it is transformed from the act of a free and independent moral agent to that of a group of people. The most serious consideration is whether the widespread adoption of civil disobedience would lead to the breakdown of the fabric of law and order and make the peaceful functioning of a democracy impossible. Civil disobedience makes sense only in a society where we can freely appeal to public opinion.
