What part of ‘unjust law' don't you understand?

Boston Globe

07-05-2025

Get The Gavel
A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.
Enter Email
Sign Up
'All of them,'
Advertisement
Yet in other contexts, Trump and his aides are far kinder to those who 'broke our nation's laws.'
During the 2024 presidential campaign, for example, Trump repeatedly referred to the prisoners convicted for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol as '
Advertisement
When the government last month
Today, of course, virtually everyone would agree that abolitionists like Booth were right to defy an unjust law in the face of federal pressure. The defenders of Judge Dugan regard her as standing firmly in that tradition.
Advertisement
Those who share Trump's views on immigration, on the other hand, indignantly reject the comparison.
'
Yes, that is obvious — slavery and undocumented immigration differ profoundly. But the analogy between the Fugitive Slave Act and contemporary border enforcement doesn't rest on comparing the conditions of the people affected. It rests on the government's role in criminalizing their presence, denying them sanctuary, and punishing those who aid them.
More than that, it focuses on a perennial ethical question: Is obeying the law always the moral choice?
Again and again, American history provides painful reminders that not all laws are just and legality is not the same as morality. It is easy now to dismiss the Fugitive Slave Act as an assault on human dignity and to applaud those who subverted it. But in its time it was the law of the land, supported even by many Americans who detested slavery.
The same is true today. The law of the land allows undocumented immigrants to be deported; the Trump administration claims it has the authority to do so summarily, without due process of law. Yet even if the White House is right about the law, the law itself may be in the wrong. And while the rule of law is deeply rooted in our tradition, so is resistance to bad laws. Law commands respect but not blind obedience — especially when history is watching.
Advertisement
Jeff Jacoby can be reached at