Civil disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Civil Disobedience

To protest the American government's involvement in the Mexican War of 1846-1848, Henry David Thoreau refused to pay his taxes and was quickly thrown into prison as a result of his nonviolent act of "Civil Disobedience." (Wood, 173) From prison, he wrote a political and philosophical tract called "Civil Disobedience" in defense of his radical actions. This work not only condemned the Mexican War as an intentional provocation on the part of the United States. It stated as Thoreau's core motto regarding governance, that not only does the best government, govern least, but the very best government governs not at all -- in other words, when human beings are capable of civil behavior towards their fellow citizens and to the citizens of the world, when people no longer need be compelled to act wisely and well by the law, then people will have reached the highest level of civilization and need no government at all. (Prentice Hall, 413)

Not to need a government is the ideal for Thoreau, self-governance and self-respect -- and respect of others in an ideal society. At present, in a non-idyllic world, government, Thoreau states, is and should only function as an expedient of the people's will not an institution to satisfy its own needs and its leaders needs. Government is nothing in and of itself, without the people that created it and support it, and when it no longer sustains and supports the people and the popular reasons it came into being, it should be dissolved and a new government should come into being. To make this event occur, all individuals should refuse to participate in unjust governments through peaceful noncompliance until the people's collective will be done. (Wood, 174) simple democratic statement of pacifism, one might say -- if one views "Civil Disobedience" in isolation. However, Wynn Yarborough has argued that, viewed in the totality of Thoreau's prose, there is a considerable dimension of complexity to the apparently individualistic, Transcendentalist homesteader of Walden and "Civil Disobedience." The multifaceted and often contradictory nature of Thoreau is why very era has reinterpreted Thoreau according to its own needs. The individualistic and pacific eyes of the 1960s and 1970's saw the Thoreau of "Civil Disobedience" as a figure whose actions were a foreshadowing of the civil rights and anti-war movements. but, if one looks back to the 1920's, politicians and ordinary people of this era tended, given that era's prosperity and conservatism, to see him as a dangerous 'crank.' (Yarborough, 1995)

Nascent hippie or 19th century Unabomber one might ask -- really, the truth is something in between. Yarborough condemns what he sees as a contradiction between the pacifism of Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" and the same author's defense of the violent anti-government actions of the anti-slavery activist John Brown at Harper's Ferry. The abolitionist Brown won Thoreau's sympathy, despite Brown's murderous acts.

Of course, one might think that Brown's ineffectuality in his rebellion was testimony enough to the greater values of nonviolent resistance, given the later success of the civil rights movement through such tactics. Regardless, to condemn Brown to death in Thoreau's view demoted the far greater human destruction of life via the institution of enslavement Brown attempted to end. This does not seem so much to be a contradiction or a defense of violence but a tempering of the anger that Brown created in the hearts of many Americans, and an attempt to put the violent acts of Brown in the context of the equally violent actions of slavery.

Perhaps the main contradiction between Thoreau is not his praise of Brown and his advocating of his own pacifist, resistance to the Mexican War, and the value of civil disobedience, but his condemnation of slavery and praise of populism and a lack of government authority in "Civil Disobedience." The latter work's expressed defense of the popular sentiment as unilaterally guiding the government's will would not have ended slavery in the South. To follow this belief in majority rules to its logical extension is to entirely deny minority rights such as Black Americans.

Also, Thoreau's defense of his own moral principles, based on the transcendentalist upholding of the self and self-reliant principles, often came into conflict and contradiction with the popular will and common imagination of his own day, which was not nearly so pacifist, abolitionist, or radical. To respond with one's own principle when recalling Thoreau's motto that the government that governs best, governs least, one might say that a government that protects minority as well as majority rights in an active fashion commands more respect than no government at all, that could easily dissolve into anarchy. Thoreau asks readers to opt out of government, but opting out of voting can result in one's opponents taking command of the good or bad government that does exist, despite Thoreau's desire for the abolition of all governance.