Civil Disobedience the Concept of \"Civil Disobedience\"

Civil Disobedience

The concept of "Civil Disobedience" was first put forward by the American author, Henry David Thoreau in his famous essay "Civil Disobedience" initially published in 1849 as "Resistance to Civil Government." Although Thoreau's essay had little impact in the nineteenth century, his ideas about civil disobedience were put into practice in the twentieth century by leaders such as Mohandas Ghandhi during India's struggle for independence and by Martin Luther King Jr. In the Civil Rights movement by the American blacks.

The concept of "Civil Disobedience" before 1900 was the same as it is now since it has been mainly derived from Thoreau's initial concept. It usually refers to refusal to obey civil laws and decrees through passive resistance. People who choose to practice civil disobedience deliberately break a law, which they consider as unjust, to bring attention to the injustice. The goal of a civil disobedience act or movement is to get the unjust law amended or repealed and the people practicing it are willing to go to jail or suffer in other ways for their objectives.

Thoreau believed that the individual was a higher and independent power and the state obtained its legitimate power and authority from the individual. He exhorted the people to resist unjust laws especially if they require a person to be the agent of injustice to another. He believed that if a person is truly in the right, then God is on his side and he constitutes "a majority of one."

As mentioned earlier, most famous civil disobedience movements were conducted in the twentieth century. However, in the pre-1900 period, Thoreau himself practiced "Civil Disobedience" by not paying his poll-tax. He did so as he was opposed to several government policies at the time such as the continuing practice of slavery and the Mexican War (1846-48) that he considered as unjust and the work of a few people using the standing government as a tool.