| [one] I heartily have the motto,�"That government is best which governs least" ; and I should like to see information technology acted up to more speedily and systematically. 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 exist the kind of authorities which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient ; simply near governments are ordinarily, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a continuing ground forces, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at final be brought against a continuing government. The continuing army is only an arm of the continuing government. The government itself, which is only the manner which the people have chosen to execute their will , is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people tin can human activity through it.Witness the nowadays Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the continuing authorities equally their tool; for in the offset, the people would not have consented to this measure. [2] This American regime�what is it but a tradition, though a recent 1, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? Information technology has non the vitality and force of a single living human; for a single man tin can bend it to his volition. Information technology is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that thought of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon, fifty-fifty impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Still this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its style. It does not keep the country gratuitous. Information technology does not settle the West. It does not brainwash. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and information technology would have done somewhat more than, if the regime had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient, by which men would fain succeed in letting 1 another alone; and, as has been said, when information technology is well-nigh expedient, the governed are nigh let alone by it. Merchandise and commerce, if they were non made of republic of india-rubber , would never manage to bounce over obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and if one were to judge these men wholly past the effects of their actions and non partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievious persons who put obstructions on the railroads. [3] But, 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. Let every man make known what kind of authorities would command his respect, and that will be one stride toward obtaining information technology. [4] After all, the practical reason why, when the power is one time in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long flow continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. Simply government in which the majority rule in all cases can non be based on justice, fifty-fifty every bit far as men understand it. Can at that place not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually determine right and incorrect, but conscience?�in which majorities decide simply those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his censor to the legislator? Why has every man a censor, then? I call up that we should exist men first, and subjects later. It is non desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, and so much every bit for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at whatsoever time what I think correct. It is truly plenty said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Police force never fabricated men a whit more than just; and, by ways of their respect for it, fifty-fifty the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A mutual and natural upshot of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, helm, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys , and all, marching in admirable order over loma and dale to the wars, confronting their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They take no doubt that it is a damnable concern in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or pocket-size movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in ability? Visit the Navy G , and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such every bit it can make a man with its black arts�-a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and continuing, and already, every bit one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniment, though it may be,-- ""Non a drum was heard, non a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Non a soldier discharged his goodbye shot
O'er the grave where our hero was buried." [5] The mass of men serve the country thus, not equally men mainly, just as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing regular army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus , etc. In about cases in that location is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps exist manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such control no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed adept citizens. Others�-every bit about legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders�-serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending information technology, as God. A very few�-equally heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the neat sense, and men�-serve the state with their consciences as well, and then necessarily resist it for the virtually part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise human being will just be useful as a human, and will not submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind abroad," but leave that office to his grit at least:� "I am besides high-born to exist propertied,
To be a 2d at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To whatever sovereign state throughout the world." [6] He who gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears to them useless and selfish; merely he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist. [seven] How does information technology become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political system equally my government which is the slave's government also. [8] All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the correct to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is non the case at present. Simply such was the instance, they think, in the Revolution of �75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about information technology, for I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and perchance this does enough good to counter-residuum the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir most it. But when the friction comes to accept its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us non have such a motorcar any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered past a foreign army, and subjected to military machine police force, I think that it is non also shortly for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is that fact that the land so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading regular army. [9] Paley , a mutual authority with many on moral questions, in his chapter on the "Duty of Submission to Civil Government," resolves all civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say that "so long equally the interest of the whole order requires it, that it, so long as the established authorities cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniencey, it is the volition of God . . . that the established government exist obeyed�-and no longer. This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a ciphering of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the 1 side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other." Of this, he says, every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, equally well and an private, must do justice, price what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient. Merely he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make state of war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people. [10] In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does anyone think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the nowadays crisis? "A drab of land , a fabric-o'-silver slut,
To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the clay." Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred 1000 merchants and farmers hither, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, price what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, about at home, co-operate with, and practise the bidding of, those far away, and without whom the latter would exist harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but comeback is dull, because the few are not equally materially wiser or better than the many. Information technology is not so important that many should be adept every bit y'all, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. At that place are thousands who are in stance opposed to slavery and to the war, who all the same in upshot practice nix to put an finish to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know non what to exercise, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of liberty to the question of free trade, and quietly read the prices-electric current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the cost-current of an honest homo and patriot today? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do cipher in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for other to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At well-nigh, they give up merely a cheap vote , and a feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the correct, as it goes by them. At that place are 9 hundred and ninety-ix patrons of virtue to one virtuous human. Only it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a affair than with the temporary guardian of it. [11] All voting is a sort of gaming, similar checkers or backgammon , with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is non staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; just I am non vitally concerned that that correct should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise human will not get out the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish information technology to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolitionism of slavery, it will be considering they are indifferent to slavery, or because in that location is only little slavery left to exist abolished past their vote. They will so be the only slaves. But his vote tin hasten the abolitionism of slavery who asserts his own freedom past his vote. [12] I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the Presidency, fabricated up chiefly of editors, and men who are politicians by profession; but I think, what is information technology to any contained, intelligent, and respectable man what decision they may come up to? Shall we not take the advantage of this wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Tin can we not count upon some independent votes? Are there non many individuals in the state who practice not nourish conventions? But no: I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his land, when his country has more than reasons to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected equally the simply available 1, thus proving that he is himself available for whatsoever purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of whatever unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may take been bought. O for a human who is a homo , and, and my neighbor says, has a bone is his back which you cannot pass your paw through! Our statistics are at mistake: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a foursquare thousand miles in the country? Inappreciably one. Does not America offering any inducement for men to settle here? The American has dwindled into an Odd Beau �1 who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self-reliance; whose offset and principal business concern, on coming into the world, is to run into that the almshouses are in good repair; and, before however he has lawfully donned the virile garb, to collect a fund to the back up of the widows and orphans that may be; who, in brusque, ventures to live only by the help of the Common Insurance company, which has promised to bury him decently. [13] It is not a human'south duty, every bit a thing of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even to most enormous, wrong; he may still properly take other concerns to engage him; simply it is his duty, at least, to launder his hands of it, and, if he gives it no idea longer, non to requite it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must outset run across, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another homo'south shoulders. I must get off him start, that he may pursue his contemplations likewise. Run into what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I should like to have them order me out to assist put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico�-see if I would become"; and however these very men have each, directly by their fidelity, and and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust state of war by those who do non decline to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded past those whose own act and authorisation he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that information technology hired 1 to scourge it while it sinned, but non to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, nether the proper name of Guild and Civil Regime, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. Subsequently the beginning blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral information technology becomes, as it were, unmoral, and non quite unnecessary to that life which we have made. [14] The broadest and nigh prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are near likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove of the grapheme and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and back up are undoubtedly its nigh conscientious supporters, and so oft the near serious obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Spousal relationship , to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves�-the union between themselves and the State�-and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in aforementioned relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And have not the aforementioned reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the Land? [15] How tin can a homo be satisfied to entertain and opinion simply, and relish it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If yous are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbour, you exercise non rest satisfied with knowing you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or fifty-fifty with petitioning him to pay you your due; just you accept effectual steps at one time to obtain the full corporeality, and see to it that you are never cheated over again. Action from principle, the perception and the operation of correct, changes things and relations; it is substantially revolutionary, and does non consist wholly with anything which was. Information technology not merely divided States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the private, separating the diabolical in him from the divine. [16] Unjust laws exist: shall nosotros be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall nosotros transgress them at once? Men, mostly, under such a government every bit this, call back that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the bulk to alter them. They remember that, if they should resist, the remedy would exist worse than the evil. Simply it is the mistake of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. Information technology makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does information technology weep and resist before it is hurt? Why does information technology not encourage its citizens to put out its faults, and exercise meliorate than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels? [17] One would remember, that a deliberate and practical deprival of its authorisation was the but offense never contemplated by its government; else, why has it not assigned its definite, its suitable and proportionate, punishment? If a man who has no holding refuses but once to earn nine shillings for the State, he is put in prison house for a catamenia unlimited past any law that I know, and determined only by the discretion of those who put him there; but if he should steal ninety times 9 shillings from the State, he is soon permitted to go at big once again. [18] If the injustice is office of the necessary friction of the motorcar of government, permit information technology become, allow it go: maybe it will article of clothing smooth�certainly the auto volition wear out. If the injustice has a bound, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy volition not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you lot to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, interruption the police force. Allow your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to practise is to come across, at any rate, that I practise not lend myself to the incorrect which I condemn. [19] As for adopting the means of the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take likewise much fourth dimension, and a man's life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a expert place to live in, just to live in it, exist it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and considering he cannot do everything, information technology is not necessary that he should be petitioning the Governor or the Legislature whatever more than than it is theirs to petition me; and if they should not hear my petition, what should I do then? Just in this example the Land has provided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconcilliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better, like birth and death, which quake the trunk. [20] I exercise not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once around withdraw their back up, both in person and belongings, from the authorities of Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a bulk of one , before they endure the right to prevail through them. I call back that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other 1. Moreover, whatsoever homo more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already. [21] I meet this American government, or its representative, the State government, directly, and face to confront, in one case a yr�no more�in the person of its taxation-gatherer; this is the only way in which a human being situated every bit I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly, Recognize me; and the simplest, the about effectual, and, in the present posture of affairs, the indispensablest mode of treating with it on this head, of expressing your little satisfaction with and beloved for it, is to deny it then. My ceremonious neighbor, the revenue enhancement-gatherer , is the very man I have to deal with�for information technology is, after all, with men and not with parchment that I quarrel�-and he has voluntarily chosen to exist an agent of the authorities. How shall he ever know well that he is and does every bit an officeholder of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he will treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbour and well-tending man, or equally a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can become over this obstruction to his neighborlines without a ruder and more impetuous thought or spoken communication respective with his activeness. I know this well, that if one g, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could proper noun�-if x honest men only�ay, if one HONEST human, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this co-partnership, and be locked up in the canton jail therefor, information technology would exist the abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how small-scale the showtime may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. Only nosotros love better to talk about it: that we say is our mission. Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service, but not one man. If my esteemed neighbour , the Land's ambassador, who will devote his days to the settlement of the question of human being rights in the Quango Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of Carolina, were to sit downwards the prisoner of Massachusetts, that State which is so broken-hearted to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister�-though at present she can discover only an human activity of inhospitality to be the ground of a quarrel with her�-the Legislature would non wholly waive the bailiwick of the following wintertime. [22] Nether a regime which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only identify which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less despondent spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they accept already put themselves out past their principles. It is there that the avoiding slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race should find them; on that separate but more complimentary and honorable ground, where the State places those who are not with her, but against her�the only firm in a slave Land in which a free man tin abide with honor. If whatsoever think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not exist as an enemy inside its walls, they exercise non know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a petty in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper simply, simply your whole influence. A minority is powerless while information technology conforms to the majority; it is not fifty-fifty a minority then; merely it is irresistible when information technology clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to go along all merely men in prison, or requite up state of war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their taxation bills this twelvemonth, that would non be a fierce and bloody measure, every bit it would exist to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if whatever such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officeholder, asks me, equally one has done, "But what shall I do?" my reply is, "If you really wish to do annihilation, resign your part." When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officeholder has resigned from office, then the revolution is achieved. Only fifty-fifty suppose blood shed when the censor is wounded? Through this wound a human being's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I run into this blood flowing now. [23] I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, rather than the seizure of his goods�-though both will serve the aforementioned purpose�-because they who assert the purest correct, and consequently are most unsafe to a corrupt State, usually have not spent much time in accumulating holding. To such the State renders comparatively small service, and a slight tax is wont to announced exorbitant, particularly if they are obliged to earn information technology by special labor with their hands. If there were ane who lived wholly without the apply of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man�not to make any invidious comparison�is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Admittedly speaking, the more coin, the less virtue; for coin comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; it was certainly no cracking virtue to obtain it. It puts to remainder many questions which he would otherwise be taxed to respond; while the just new question which it puts is the difficult but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his moral footing is taken from under his feet. The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as that are called the "ways" are increased. The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to attempt to acquit out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor. Christ answered the Herodians co-ordinate to their condition. "Testify me the tribute-money," said he�and one took a penny out of his pocket�if you lot use money which has the image of Caesar on it, and which he has fabricated current and valuable, that is, if you are men of the Country, and gladly relish the advantages of Caesar's government, then pay him back some of his ain when he demands it. "Render therefore to Caesar that which is Caesar'southward and to God those things which are God's"�leaving them no wiser than before every bit to which was which; for they did not wish to know. [24] When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that, any they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the question, and their regard for the public quiet, the long and the brusque of the thing is, that they cannot spare the protection of the existing authorities, and they dread the consequences to their holding and families of disobedience to it. For my own part, I should not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of the Land. But, if I deny the authority of the Country when it presents its revenue enhancement bill, information technology will soon accept and waste matter all my holding, so harass me and my children without end. This is hard. This makes information technology incommunicable for a man to live honestly, and at the aforementioned time comfortably, in outward respects. It volition not be worth the while to accumulate belongings; that would be sure to get over again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and swallow that shortly. You must alive within yourself, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and set for a start, and not have many diplomacy. A man may grow rich in Turkey fifty-fifty, if he will be in all respects a good discipline of the Turkish government. Confucius said: "If a state is governed past the principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame; if a state is non governed by the principles of reason, riches and honors are subjects of shame." No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to exist extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am aptitude solely on edifice up an manor at home by peaceful enterprise, I tin beget to reject allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the punishment of disobedience to the State than information technology would to obey. I should feel every bit if I were worth less in that instance. [25 Some years ago, the Country met me in behalf of the Church building, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a chaplain whose preaching my father attended, just never I myself. "Pay," it said, "or exist locked up in the jail." I declined to pay. Merely, unfortunately, some other homo saw fit to pay it. I did not encounter why the schoolmaster should be taxed to back up the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its revenue enhancement pecker, and have the Land to dorsum its demand, as well as the Church. Nonetheless, as the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in writing: "Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do non wish to be regarded every bit a member of whatsoever guild which I have not joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it. The State, having thus learned that I did non wish to be regarded every bit a member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since; though it said that it must attach to its original presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off in particular from all the societies which I never signed on to ; simply I did non know where to find such a complete listing. [26] I take paid no poll tax for vi years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, every bit I stood considering the walls of solid stone, 2 or 3 feet thick, the door of wood and atomic number 26, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the lite, I could not aid being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated my as if I were mere flesh and blood and basic, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best employ it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some mode. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, at that place was a yet more hard one to climb or pause through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did nor for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste product of stone and mortar. I felt every bit if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did non know how to care for me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that rock wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my torso; just every bit boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will corruption his domestic dog. I saw that the Land was one-half-witted, that information technology was timid as a alone adult female with her argent spoons, and that information technology did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it. [27] Thus the country never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, only merely his body, his senses. It is non armed with superior with or honesty, but with superior concrete strength. I was non born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us encounter who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can forcefulness me who obey a higher police force than I. They force me to get like themselves. I do non hear of men being forced to live this manner or that past masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life, " why should I be in haste to give it my coin? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to practise: I cannot help that. It must help itself; exercise as I practice. Information technology is non worth the while to snivel near information technology. I am non responsible for the successful working of the mechanism of society. I am non the son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall next, the ane does not remain inert to brand way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and jump and grow and flourish as best they tin, till one, perhaps, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live co-ordinate to nature, it dies; and so a human. [28] The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in their shirtsleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, "Come, boys, information technology is fourth dimension to lock up"; and and then they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer as "a get-go-rate fellow and clever homo." When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed matters in that location. The rooms were whitewashed once a calendar month; and this i, at least, was the whitest, about simply furnished, and probably neatest apartment in boondocks. He naturally wanted to know where I came from, and what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to be an honest human, of course; and as the world goes, I believe he was. "Why," said he, "they accuse me of burning a barn ; but I never did it." As nearly every bit I could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn when drunkard, and smoked his piping at that place; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of being a clever man, had been there some three months waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to look as much longer; but he was quite domesticated and contented, since he got his board for nil, and thought that he was well treated. [29] He occupied 1 window, and I the other; and I saw that if i stayed at that place long, his principal business would be to look out the window. I had shortly read all the tracts that were left in that location, and examined where former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had been sawed off, and heard the history of the various occupants of that room; for I establish that even in that location there was a history and a gossip which never circulated across the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only firm in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, just not published. I was shown quite a long list of young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them. [xxx] I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry out every bit I could, for fear I should never come across him once again; but at length he showed me which was my bed, and left me to blow out the lamp. [31] Information technology was like travelling into a far country , such every bit I had never expected to behold, to lie there for one nighttime. It seemed to me that I never had heard the boondocks clock strike before, not the evening sounds of the village; for nosotros slept with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It was to come across my native village in the low-cal of the Middle Ages, and our Concur was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices of sometime burghers that I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spectator and auditor of any was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent hamlet inn�a wholly new and rare experience to me. It was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I never had seen its institutions before. This is one of its peculiar institutions; for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what its inhabitants were about. [32] In the morn, our breakfasts were put through the pigsty in the door, in small oblong-square tin pans, fabricated to fit, and belongings a pint of chocolate, with brownish bread, and an atomic number 26 spoon. When they called for the vessels once again, I was green enough to return what breadstuff I had left, merely my comrade seized it, and said that I should lay that up for dejeuner or dinner. Soon after he was let out to piece of work at haying in a neighboring field, whither he went every 24-hour interval, and would not exist back till noon; so he bade me proficient day, saying that he doubted if he should come across me again. [33] When I came out of prison�-for someone interfered , and paid that tax�-I did not perceive that peachy changes had taken place on the common, such every bit he observed who went in a youth and emerged a gray-headed human being; and all the same a alter had to my eyes come over the scene�-the town, and State, and country, greater than any that mere time could effect. I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived. I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only; that they did non greatly propose to do right; that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions, as the Chinamen and Malays are that in their sacrifices to humanity they ran no risks, non fifty-fifty to their property; that after all they were not so noble just they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a detail direct through useless path from time to time, to save their souls. This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe that many of them are not aware that they have such an institution equally the jail in their village. [34] It was formerly the custom in our hamlet, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the jail window, "How practice ye do?" My neighbors did not this salute me, just offset looked at me, and and then at one some other, equally if I had returned from a long journey. I was put into jail equally I was going to the shoemaker's to go a shoe which was mender. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended testify, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my carry; and in half an hour�-or the horse was before long tackled�-was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and so the Land was nowhere to exist seen. [35] This is the whole history of "My Prisons. " [36] I take never declined paying the highway taxation, considering I am as desirous of existence a skillful neighbor every bit I am of existence a bad subject; and equally for supporting schools, I am doing my office to educate my fellow countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the taxation bill that I refuse to pay it. I just wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand up aloof from it effectually. I practise not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man, or a musket to shoot i with�the dollar is innocent�just I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare state of war with the Land, afterwards my style, though I will withal make use and go what advantages of her I can, as is usual in such cases. [37] If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the Country, they do but what they take already washed in their own case, or rather they abet injustice to a greater extent than the State requires. If they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the private taxed, to save his property, or prevent his going to jail, it is because they have not considered wisely how far they let their private feelingsinterfere with the public good. [38] This, then is my position now. Just i cannot exist too much on his guard in such a case, lest his deportment be biased by obstinacy or an undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him run into that he does only what belongs to himself and to the hr. [39] I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are but ignorant; they would practice better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are non inclined to? Merely I think again, This is no reason why I should practise as they do, or let others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind. Again, I sometimes say to myself, When many millions of men, without heat, without ill will, without personal feelings of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only, without the possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their present demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming animate being forcefulness? Y'all do not resist cold and hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately; you quietly submit to a m like necessities. You exercise not put your caput into the fire. But simply in proportion as I regard this as not wholly a creature strength, merely partly a man force, and consider that I take relations to those millions every bit to so many millions of men, and not of mere brute or inanimate things, I encounter that appeal is possible, first and instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them, and, secondly, from them to themselves. Only if I put my head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to the Maker for fire, and I have just myself to blame. If I could convince myself that I have whatsoever right to be satisfied with men equally they are, and to treat them accordingly, and non according, in some respects, to my requisitions and expectations of what they and I ought to be, so, like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should endeavor to exist satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the will of God. And, above all, at that place is this divergence between resisting this and a purely fauna or natural strength, that I tin can resist this with some outcome; but I cannot expect, like Orpheus , to change the nature of the rocks and trees and beasts. [xl] I practise not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I practice not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up equally better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but likewise set up to conform to them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on this caput; and each year, every bit the tax-gatherer comes circular, I find myself tending to review the acts and position of the general and Country governments, and the spirit of the people to detect a pretext for conformity. "Nosotros must bear upon our state as our parents,
And if at any time we alienate
Our love or industry from doing it honor,
We must respect furnishings and teach the soul
Matter of censor and religion,
And not desire of rule or benefit." [41] I believe that the Country will soon exist able to accept all my work of this sort out of my hands, and and then I shall exist no better patriot than my beau-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the constabulary and the courts are very respectable; even this State and this American government are, in many respects, very beauteous, and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a not bad many have described them; seen from a higher even so, and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all? [42] Nevertheless, the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. Information technology is not many moments that I live nether a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-gratis, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time appearing to exist to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him. [43] I know that most men think differently from myself; only those whose lives are by profession devoted to the study of these or kindred subjects content me every bit piffling equally any. Statesmen and legislators, standing then completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving social club, just have no resting-identify without information technology. They may exist men of a sure experience and bigotry, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within sure not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the globe is non governed past policy and expediency. Webster never goes behind government, and then cannot speak with potency near information technology. His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no essential reform in the existing government; simply for thinkers, and those who legislate for all fourth dimension, he never once glances at the subject. I know of those whose serene and wise speculations on this theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind's range and hospitality. Yet, compared with the cheap professions of well-nigh reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom an eloquence of politicians in general, his are almost the only sensible and valuable words, and we thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, he is always strong, original, and, higher up all, practical. Still, his quality is non wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer's truth is non Truth, only consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with incorrect-doing. He well deserves to be called, equally he has been called, the Defender of the Constitution. There are really no blows to exist given him but defensive ones. He is not a leader, simply a follower. His leaders are the men of �87. "I accept never made an endeavour," he says, "and never propose to make an effort; I have never countenanced an effort, and never mean to eyebrow an effort, to disturb the arrangement as originally made, by which diverse States came into the Marriage." Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, "Because it was function of the original compact�let it stand." Nonetheless his special affectibility and ability, he is unable to accept a fact out of its merely political relations, and behold information technology every bit it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the intellect�what, for case, it behooves a man to practice here in America today with regard to slavery�merely ventures, or is driven, to make some such desperate answer to the following, while professing to speak admittedly, and as a individual human�from which what new and singular of social duties might be inferred? "The manner," says he, "in which the governments of the States where slavery exists are to regulate it is for their own consideration, under the responsibility to their constituents, to the general laws of propriety, humanity, and justice, and to God. Associations formed elsewhere, springing from a feeling of humanity, or any other cause, have zippo whatsoever to do with it. They accept never received whatever encouragement from me and they never will. [Thoreau's Note: "These extracts have been inserted since the lecture was read."] [44] They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand up, past the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at information technology there with reverence and humanity; just they who behold where information technology comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more than, and go on their pilgrimage toward its fountainhead. [45] No human with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thou; but the speaker has not even so opened his rima oris to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for whatever truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of costless trade and of freed, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation. They take no genius or talent for comparatively humble questions of tax and finance, commerce and manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank amidst the nations. For xviii hundred years, though perchance I take no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and applied talent enough to avail himself of the lite which it sheds on the scientific discipline of legislation. [46] The authorisation of regime, even such as I am willing to submit to�for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can exercise and so well�is even so an impure one: to be strictly just, information technology must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can take no pure correct over my person and property but what I concede to information technology. The progress from an absolute to a express monarchy, from a express monarchy to a republic, is a progress toward a truthful respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know information technology, the last improvement possible in regime? Is it not possible to accept a footstep further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of human? There will never be a actually free and enlightened Land until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent ability, from which all its own ability and authority are derived, and treats him appropriately. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be only to all men, and to treat the individual with respect every bit a neighbour; which fifty-fifty would not recall information technology inconsistent with its own quiet if a few were to lie aristocratic from information technology, non meddling with information technology, nor embraced by information technology, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to driblet off as fast as it ripened, would set up the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I have as well imagined, only not however anywhere seen.   Sources: - Drinnon, Richard. "Thoreau'south Politics of the Upright Man." The Massachusetts Review 4.1 (Fall 1962): 126-138. Also in John Hicks, Thoreau in Our Season (Amherst, 1966, 154-68).
- Duban, James. "Thoreau, Garrison, and Dymond: Unbending Firmness of Mind." American Literature 57 (1985): 309-317.
- Meyer, Michael. "'Ceremonious Disobedience' and the Problem of Thoreau'due south 'Peaceable Revolution'." Approaches to Instruction Thoreau's Walden and Other Works. New York: MLA, 1996.
- Kaplan, Morris. "Ceremonious Disobedience, Conscience, and Customs: Thoreau's 'Double Self' and the Problematic of Political Action." The Delegated Intellect: Emersonian Essays on Literature, Science, and Art in Honor of Don Gifford. New York: Peter Lang, 1995.
- Rossi, William, editor. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Resistance to Ceremonious Government. New York: Norton & Visitor, 1966.
- Stern, Philip Van Doren. The Annotated Walden. New York: Clarkson Potter, 1970.
- Woods, Barry. "Thoreau's Narrative Art in 'Civil Defiance'." Philological Quarterly 60 (1981):105-115
Additional Resources: Bedau, Hugo Adam. ed. Ceremonious Disobedience: Theory and Exercise. NY, 1969. - Duban, James. "Censor and Consciousness: The Liberal Christian Context of Thoreau's Political Ethic." American Literature 60 (1987), 208-22.
- Erlich, Michael. "Thoreau'southward 'Civil Disobedience': Strategy for Reform." Connecticut Review 7.1 (1973), 100-110.
- Franklin, H. Bruce. Prison Literature in America: The Victim as Criminal and Artist. Westport: Hill, 1978.
- Glick, Wendell. "'Ceremonious Defiance': Thoreau'southward Assail upon Relativism." Western Humanities Review 7 (1952), 35-42.
- Harding, Walter. "Was It Legal? Thoreau in Jail." American Heritage, Aug 1975, 36-37.
- Herr, William. "A More Perfect Land: Thoreau'south Concept of Ceremonious Government." Massachusetts Review 16 (1975), 470-87.
- Herr, William. "Thoreau: A Civil Disobedient?" Ideals 85 (1974), 87-91. Madden, Edward. Civil Disobedience and Moral Police in Nineteenth-Century American Philosophy. Seattle, 1968.
- Wynn Yarborough, Changing Trends in Criticism of "Resistance to Civil Government.". VCU, 1999.
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