By Arpit Agrawal :
Henry David Thoreau, born on July the 12th, 1817 was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resistor, development critic, surveyor, historian and a leading transcendentalist. “Resistance to Civil Government” or simply referred to as “Civil Disobedience” is an essay written by Thoreau and first published in 1849. “Civil Disobedience” is an analysis of the individual’s relationship to the state that focuses on why men obey governmental law even when they believe it to be unjust. But “Civil Disobedience” is not an essay of abstract theory. It is Thoreau’s extremely personal response to being imprisoned for breaking the law. Thoreau detested slavery and because tax revenues contributed to the support of it, Thoreau decided to become a tax rebel. There were no income taxes and Thoreau did not own enough land to worry about property taxes; but there was the hated poll tax – a capital tax levied equally on all adults within a community. Thoreau declined to pay the tax and so, in July 1846, he was arrested and jailed. He was supposed to remain in jail until a fine was paid which he also declined to pay. Without his knowledge or consent, however, relatives settled the “debt” and a disgruntled Thoreau was released after only one night. The incarceration may have been brief but it has had enduring effects through “Civil Disobedience.”
Though, Thoreau begins the essay expressing his serious displeasure with the American government, he wasn’t advocating for true anarchy. That’s where the ‘civil’ part of ‘civil disobedience’ comes in. Instead, he argues in the essay that American citizens should really follow their own consciences, and that those who opposed slavery or the Mexican-American War should stop paying taxes, because paying taxes to a government that supported those things was basically offering them support. Civil Disobedience argued that what a person believed to be right is more important than what was mandated by the government. It states: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”
Thoreau began his essay through the statement: “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. 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.” These statements portray his distrust for the United State government. Thoreau asserts that because governments are typically more harmful than helpful, they therefore cannot be justified. According to Thoreau governments are inexpedient. Thoreau also believed that even in a democracy as the government is only run by the majority and in its essence it is only mjoritarianism and not a rule through the conscience of the men. The government, according to Thoreau, is not just a little corrupt or unjust in the course of doing its otherwise-important work, but in fact the government is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice. Because of this, it is “not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize.” Thoreau asks the question, “Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislation? Why has every man a conscience, then?” According to Thoreau Law does not make men more just, it simply and loyalty to the law can even the most just men the agents of injustice. He adds, “I cannot for an instant recognize as my government [that] which is the slave’s government also.”
Thoreau stated: “The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command 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 good citizens. Others- as most 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 it, as God. ” He argued that such men do not use their conscience and only are tools for the state to use for its unjust ends. Thoreau stated that people “cannot spare the protection of the existing government, and they dread the consequences to their property and families of disobedience to it”. So it makes sense that most people would not be willing to risk losing their property, family, or their life.
Unlike the other philosophers that detest an upheaval or revolution Thoreau openly supports the revolution. He exhorts people not to just wait passively for an opportunity to vote for justice, because voting for justice is as ineffective as wishing for justice; what you need to do is to actually be just. This is not to say that you have an obligation to devote your life to fighting for justice, but you do have an obligation not to commit injustice and not to give injustice your practical support. Thoreau states, “All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable…. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine 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 by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.” Thoreau also opposes voting. On voting he states, “All voting is a sort of gaming, like 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 not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail…..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 man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.” He further goes on to say, “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.… where the State places those who are not with her, but against her,– the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.… Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence…..If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be 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 any such is possible…. ” Thoreau said he was willing to pay the highway tax, which went to pay for something of benefit to his neighbours, but that he was opposed to taxes that went to support the government itself—even if he could not tell if his particular contribution would eventually be spent on an unjust project or a beneficial one. “I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually.”
Thoreau concluded that because government is man-made, not an element of nature or an act of God, that its makers could be reasoned with. As governments go, he felt, the U.S. government, with all its faults, was not the worst and even had some admirable qualities. But he felt we could and should insist on better.
Thoreau influenced many great leaders. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. were influenced greatly by this essay.