Some goals are so worthy that it is glorious even to fail.
Atticus Finch may have failed to achieve justice for Tom Robinson, but he helped change the society that wrongfully convicted Tom. To Kill a Mockingbird is set in Georgia during the Depression, a time and place in which racism was so rampant that it destroyed any chance for African-Americans to obtain a fair trial. Even though the rule of law stated that blacks had rights and were entitled to due process, the social code of the South said that blacks were second class citizens. Atticus Finch refused to play by the social rules, and in doing so changed the minds of the community and gave life to the rule of law. Social rules had greater force than the rule of law in the Jim Crow South, even when the social rule came in direct conflict with the rule of law.