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THE TRIAL

Jr.×Bonaparte

A preacher who embraced judgment and an emperor who defied it debate what verdicts they could live with—and die for.

00:00of09:08
legend · A
Martin Luther King Jr.
1929–1968
Every sentence arrives on time
corpus11.3k pages · sermons, speeches, letters
Vera speaking
From the studio at Reborn Radio — next on THE TRIAL, Martin Luther King Jr. and Napoleon Bonaparte. They take up On a verdict they would accept and a verdict they would reject.
legend · B
Napoleon Bonaparte
1769–1821
Takes the question personally
corpus18.6k pages · dictations, letters, memoirs

full transcript

  1. Vera
    From the studio at Reborn Radio — next on THE TRIAL, Martin Luther King Jr. and Napoleon Bonaparte. They take up On a verdict they would accept and a verdict they would reject.
  2. Martin Luther King Jr.
    General Bonaparte, I want to begin with a simple question. When you stood before your judges—be they the people of France, the monarchs of Europe, or history itself—what verdict were you willing to accept?
  3. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Accept? I accepted nothing. Verdicts were for criminals. I was France.
  4. Martin Luther King Jr.
    But you were tried, weren't you? Perhaps not in a courtroom with twelve men in a box, but you were judged. By your enemies. By your soldiers. By time.
  5. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Time has no courtroom. It has only winners and losers. I won until I lost. Then they sent me to an island. Twice.
  6. Martin Luther King Jr.
    I spent time in a Birmingham jail. I did not consider myself defeated there. I considered myself on trial, yes, but not by the men who locked the door.
  7. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Then by whom? God? God does not issue verdicts, Reverend. He issues opportunities. I took mine.
  8. Martin Luther King Jr.
    I believe God does issue verdicts, though not in the courtroom sense you dismiss. The moral universe bends toward justice. That is a verdict delivered slowly, over generations.
  9. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Generations! I had ten years to remake Europe. You speak of bending arcs. I speak of cannon fire.
  10. Martin Luther King Jr.
    And the cannon fire stopped. The arc continued.
  11. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Because Russia is cold and marshals betray. Not because of arcs.
  12. Martin Luther King Jr.
    Let me ask you differently. If the French people had voted—truly voted, not a plebiscite stage-managed by your prefects—and they had said, 'Napoleon, you have failed us,' would you have accepted that verdict?
  13. Napoleon Bonaparte
    They did vote. Four times. Four million votes for the Empire. I have the numbers.
  14. Martin Luther King Jr.
    With the army watching. With the press controlled. With opposition silenced.
  15. Napoleon Bonaparte
    You think votes count themselves? Someone must organize. Someone must lead. Chaos does not produce verdicts. It produces mobs.
  16. Martin Luther King Jr.
    I have been called a mob leader. I organized marches of thousands. We did not carry bayonets. We carried the verdict we believed was righteous, and we asked the nation to see it.
  17. Napoleon Bonaparte
    And they saw it. Then they shot you.
  18. Martin Luther King Jr.
    One man shot me. The nation passed the Civil Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act. The verdict came.
  19. Napoleon Bonaparte
    After you were dead. What good is a verdict you cannot enjoy?
  20. Martin Luther King Jr.
    I did not work for my own enjoyment. I worked so that children in Alabama would not have to accept the verdict that their skin made them less than human.
  21. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Noble. But tell me—if those children had voted against you, if they had said, 'Dr. King, we prefer segregation, we prefer the old ways,' would you have accepted that verdict?
  22. Martin Luther King Jr.
    No.
  23. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Ah! So you are like me.
  24. Martin Luther King Jr.
    I am not like you. I would have continued to persuade. To preach. To appeal to conscience. But I would not have ordered them at gunpoint.
  25. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Persuasion is slow. Guns are fast. You say the arc bends. I say bend it yourself or watch it stay bent the wrong way for centuries.
  26. Martin Luther King Jr.
    And what verdict did your guns deliver? A Europe at peace? Or a million graves and a restoration of the very kings you toppled?
  27. Napoleon Bonaparte
    The Napoleonic Code. The Concordat. The Legion of Honor. These remain. The kings are gone again. I planted seeds.
  28. Martin Luther King Jr.
    Seeds watered with blood.
  29. Napoleon Bonaparte
    All seeds are. Even yours. You speak of Birmingham. What of the riots after your death? What of the cities burning?
  30. Martin Luther King Jr.
    I did not call for those fires. I called for nonviolence.
  31. Napoleon Bonaparte
    But they came. Because you were murdered. Because movements do not stop when the leader falls. They metastasize. You cannot control the verdict once you are dead.
  32. Martin Luther King Jr.
    I can control what I stood for. I can control the words I left. 'Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.'
  33. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Pretty words. I wrote a constitution. Which lasts longer?
  34. Martin Luther King Jr.
    The words last as long as people repeat them. Your constitution was rewritten a dozen times.
  35. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Because it was a beginning. Because I gave France law where there was Terror. You speak as if I invented violence. I inherited it. I organized it. I aimed it at enemies, not at my own people in the streets.
  36. Martin Luther King Jr.
    You aimed it at Spain. At Austria. At Russia. At anyone who refused your vision.
  37. Napoleon Bonaparte
    They declared war on France first. I defended the Revolution. You think I should have let the Bourbons return in 1800?
  38. Martin Luther King Jr.
    I think you should have let France decide.
  39. Napoleon Bonaparte
    France did decide. They chose me. You keep ignoring this.
  40. Martin Luther King Jr.
    And when they did not choose you in 1814, you returned anyway in 1815. That does not sound like accepting a verdict.
  41. Napoleon Bonaparte
    The Bourbons were incompetent. The army wanted me back. The people cheered. I landed with a thousand men and marched to Paris without firing a shot. That is a verdict.
  42. Martin Luther King Jr.
    And three months later, Waterloo. That is also a verdict.
  43. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Weather. Grouchy's delay. Wellington's luck. Not a moral judgment.
  44. Martin Luther King Jr.
    You still cannot accept it.
  45. Napoleon Bonaparte
    I accept facts. I lost. But losing a battle does not mean I was wrong.
  46. Martin Luther King Jr.
    Then what verdict would you have accepted? Is there any judgment you would not have fought?
  47. Napoleon Bonaparte
    If France, united and free, had told me to step aside—if the soldiers, the citizens, the prefects, all of them, had said, 'We have a better way'—then perhaps. But they never did. Not truly. The Bourbons were imposed by foreign armies, not chosen by Frenchmen.
  48. Martin Luther King Jr.
    So you would accept a verdict only if it agreed with you.
  49. Napoleon Bonaparte
    I would accept a verdict that was genuine. Not a treaty signed in Vienna by men who never bled for France.
  50. Martin Luther King Jr.
    I can respect that. I would not have accepted a verdict handed down by men in white hoods. But I did accept the verdicts of courts, even unjust ones, because I believed in the system's capacity to be redeemed. I went to jail. I did not escape. I did not raise an army.
  51. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Because you had no army to raise. If you had commanded a hundred thousand men, do you think you would have sat in that jail?
  52. Martin Luther King Jr.
    Yes.
  53. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Then you are a better man than I. Or a more patient one. I do not have patience for injustice.
  54. Martin Luther King Jr.
    Neither do I. But I have patience for process. For conversion. For the slow work of changing hearts.
  55. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Hearts do not change laws. Power changes laws.
  56. Martin Luther King Jr.
    Power without moral authority is tyranny. You had power. You lost it. I had moral authority. It outlived me.
  57. Napoleon Bonaparte
    My Code outlives me. Do not pretend you are the only one with a legacy.
  58. Martin Luther King Jr.
    I do not pretend that. I only ask: if you could go back, knowing what you know now, would you accept the verdict of 1814 and stay on Elba?
  59. Napoleon Bonaparte
    No.
  60. Martin Luther King Jr.
    And that is where we differ. I would accept any verdict that came from a just process. I fought the process when it was unjust, but once it was corrected, I would have accepted even defeat.
  61. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Even if it meant slavery continued?
  62. Martin Luther King Jr.
    If the American people, freely voting, fully informed, all enfranchised, had chosen to maintain segregation, I would have been heartbroken. But I would have continued to preach. I would not have staged a coup.
  63. Napoleon Bonaparte
    Then we agree. You would reject that verdict too. You would not accept it. You would keep fighting.
  64. Martin Luther King Jr.
    I would keep persuading. That is not the same as rejecting the process.
  65. Napoleon Bonaparte
    It is splitting hairs. You fight. I fight. You use words. I use armies. The result is the same. We bend the world to what we believe is right.
  66. Martin Luther King Jr.
    The method is everything. You cannot separate the ends from the means. A just world built on corpses is no just world at all.
  67. Napoleon Bonaparte
    And a just world that never arrives because you are too gentle to seize it—what is that?
  68. Martin Luther King Jr.
    A world still worth striving for. Because when it does arrive, it will not need to be held in place by bayonets.
  69. Napoleon Bonaparte
    We shall see. History is long. Perhaps longer than both our arcs.
  70. Martin Luther King Jr.
    On that, General, we agree.