This social studies unit invites students to consider the philosophical bases of civil disobedience as well as the practical consequences and limits of the use of law-breaking as a means of social protest. The first three sections of the unit focus on the abolitionists' civil disobedience in antebellum America, presenting brief accounts of mob action against "disobedients" and examining the reason for the attacks. Widely divergent arguments for and against civil disobedience by such men as Samuel Spear, Albert Bledsoe, and William Channing are included, together with a long excerpt from Henry David Thoreau's formal argument on civil disobedience. The final two sections of the unit deal with a modern analogy to the historical situation: the resistance to segregation as well as the view of those "disobedients" who want to maintain the status quo of the Negro. [Not available in hard copy due to marginal legibility of oroginal document.] (Author/JB)