henry david thoreau resistance to civil government

For government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it.īut, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. This American government,what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man for a single man can bend it to his will.

Government is at best but an expedient but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,'That government is best which governs not at all ' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. I heartily accept the motto,'That government is best which governs least ' and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. in his campaign for racial equality in the 1950s and 1960s. Thoreau's ideas also influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. Gandhi was inspired by its message and adopted Thoreau's principles in his lifelong campaign to gain Indian independence from Great Britain. Published in 1849, his essay has since become the classic justification for acts of civil disobedience. As Thoreau continued his study of the woods and himself, he also contemplated the nature of government and the citizen's connection to it: out of this came his statement explaining his act of protest. The next day a relativeprobably his auntpaid the tax, and he was released. As a result, the local constable arrested him, and he spent the night in the Concord jail.

That July, while living at Walden Pond, Thoreau refused to pay his poll tax as a protest against the conflict, for he saw the war as an effort to extend the realm of slavery. The United States went to war against Mexico in May 1846. Resistance to Civil Government (1849), Henry David Thoreau Resistance to Civil Government (1849), Henry David Thoreau

Henry david thoreau resistance to civil government