Essay on "Hammurabi Comparing the Code"

Essay 7 pages (2322 words) Sources: 6 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Having just fought a war for independence from Great Britain, the U.S. had, after all, a reason to show that it could tend to its own affairs. Hammurabi, likewise, had reason to show his subjects that he was fair, just, and would not tolerate any abuses. To be a powerful monarch meant being a respected monarch. Hammurabi's Code is meant to inspire respect, just as the U.S. body of law is meant to inspire confidence.

Hammurabi's Code did one other thing that allows it to be likened to the law system founded upon the U.S. Constitution. It put into writing so that all might see the laws of the land and the repercussions for breaking them. Like Justinian, who updated and revised the old laws of his empire, Hammurabi should be credited with issuing a code meant to establish a degree of law and order in a day and age much less advanced (at least technologically speaking) than the day that saw the dawn of modern democracy. Hammurabi's Code takes into consideration the necessity of having a coherent, consistent, just system of law that is visible. The visibility of the Code and its survival to this day are testaments to the fact that Hammurabi's Code retained a good deal of influence in his land.

The fact that the Code has endured, at least in written form if not in practice, says something of the durability of its nature. One may contrast this durability with the durability of the U.S. legal system, which may in fact be hampered by its own complexity, ambiguity, and ability to be interpreted in so many different ways. In fact, many critics argue that the U.S. Constitution has been trampled upon in so many ways that it hardly even matters any more as a legal document. The nature of law in the U.S. has become so bureaucratized, politicized, polarized, and party-based that one could spend a good deal of time simply comparing and contrasting the nature of U.S. law as it is today with U.S. law as it was at the beginning of the country's founding (Woods 49). The sheer fact that Hammurabi's Code was chiseled into stone helped to illustrate the enduring spirit of the law. Who know if the laws of the U.S. will survive the next 50 years let alone the next three millennia?

Perhaps another reason for Hammurabi's Code's endurance is the fact that it deals so simply with hierarchical arrangements. People were not equal in Hammurabi's day, thus it was, in a sense, easier for a code to be given that dealt in one way with slaves (as law 282 does) and another way with masters; one way with children and another way officials. One problem that U.S. has faced over the years is that of equality. For a country that started off with slavery, it has had to change its laws several times in order to confront the changing ideology of the days. As equality and liberty began to take center stage in American ideology, so too did the laws begin to change (for example in the Civil Rights era). Women's rights took a prominent position in U.S. law (the 19th Amendment granted women's suffrage -- which is the right of women to vote). Laws concerning voting dealt mainly with whether one had a certain amount of property, was male and Caucasian. By the 20th century ideals had changed once more. Hammurabi's Code set his ideals in stone -- and they stayed that way, so it seems.

In conclusion, there are many differences and similarities between Hammurabi's Code and the code of law of the United States. Both codes were meant to express strength and unity. Hammurabi's Code concerned itself, however, with primarily being the law of a Just King. U.S. law, on the other hand, was concerned with showing the competency of a new nation in matters of civil and criminal law. Hammurabi's Code, in the final analysis, is the strict code of a stern father, giving his children an example to live by. U.S. law is less certain, for all its children vie to be kings.

Works Cited

Lefton, Philip. Barron's Regents Exams and Answers. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's, 1994.

Print.

Johns, C.H.W. Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters. NY: Legal

Classics Library, 1987. Print.

Reiman, Jeffrey. Abortion and the Ways We Value Human Life. Boston: Rowman and Litlefield, 1999. Print.

Shaffern, Robert. Law and Justice from Antiquity to Enlightenment. Boston: Rowman

and Littlefied, 2009. Print.

Spielvogel, Jackson. Western Civilization. Boston: Wadsworth, 2012. Print.

Stearns, Peter N. World History in Documents. NY: New York University Press, 2008.

Print.

Woods, Tom. Who Killed the Constitution? NY: Random House, 2008. Print.

Wright, John. The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge. NY: St. Martin's

Press, 2007. Print. READ MORE

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