Actions and Beliefs Thoreau's Rationale

Thoreau Philosophy Applications of Thoreau's Philosophy Against the Rule of Law Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient." This philosophy may seem strange to current ears and eyes, given the current media stress upon American patriotism and loyalty.

However, Thoreau believed that even the laws of a free society and government such as the United State's should not be reified to such an extent that they were obeyed unquestioningly, subverting the very reasons that those laws were put into place. Decisions and actions, in contrast, should be more defined by the internal moral compass of the individual, rather than upon the letter.

In case this seems to radical a prescription for a society to follow, it is sobering to reflect upon our own nation's legal and political, as well as social history, in light of the legacy of slavery that Thoreau protested. Pro-slavery legislation was defined by the law, as well as by the American human heart.

Although the law through civil rights legislation has since served to circumvent some of racism's excesses, it is important to remember that it also served as an instrument of oppression, even within a supposedly rights-based free society.

It is true that Frederick Douglass' "Speech on the Fourth of July" is an excellent illustration of how the principles of America can be used to substantiate what Douglass considered to be the true, if as yet unstated, American legal rights for African-Americans, without denying the need for a rule of law in America.

Like many African-American leaders throughout history, Frederick Douglass defends America's ideals of justice for all, but uses the liberation of African-Americans from slavery as the logical extension of the fulfillment of the nation's core, fundamental principles, rather than evidencing the need for no laws at all. Decisions that supported slavery by the Supreme Court and bills passed by the U.S.

Congress that made it easier rather than more difficult for Americans to own slaves are, in Douglass' eyes, examples of the perversion of the American ideal of individual and free legal rights, rather than any fulfillment of America's true legal and philosophical principles. Thomas Jefferson's earlier and more cautions outlining of "Notes on the State of Virginia" advocates a more doctrinaire approach to the law.

Rather than seeing American laws and rights as principles that are ultimately fulfilled, as does Douglass, or imperfect instruments that are subordinate to the inner moral leanings of moral men and women, Jefferson puts forth the idea of a loose governing structure that is responsive to the fluctuating will of the people, but ultimately must always be enforced and obeyed in a functional republic. Jefferson was confronting a new society, however, where laws were not enshrined in a long-standing tradition.

Although Thoreau, as he states in his essays upon the subject of civil disobedience, also underlined the newness of the republic, he had a certain amount of unstated historical comfort in knowing the governmental structure of law he had designed had stood, and enabled individuals to function in a limited and lawful manner, and thus had more freedom to condemn such strictures from his vantage point of a critic from a cell, held hostage to the law's excesses.

To say: "But, if I deny the authority of the State when it presents its tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end," does not take into account what might occur if the mobs possessing racist or violent thoughts take control over.