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¶ … Resistance to Civil Government, or Civil Disobedience," with these words:
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 the will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient."
While Thoreau is talking about a minimalist kind of government that intrudes as little as possible into the individual's life, the words are almost anarchistic, and it strikes me that what Thoreau is really demonstrating is one of the most remarkable things about the United States: near total freedom of speech. When it comes to Thoreau's vision of what a government should be, we have just about accomplished it with our concept of freedom of speech, which is nearly unparalleled anywhere else in the world.
When Thoreau wrote those...
Although France had also had a revolution at the end of the 18th century, their revolution had not ended the turmoil in their country. Such words would have caused great consternation in France. While the words would have been allowed in England, they might have been seen as the ravings as a crackpot. Only in the United States did the turmoil in either thought or deed by individuals against a ruling government result in a country solid enough to tolerate such thoughts.
Thoreau writes in the tradition of such men as Thomas Paine, still speaking out against any form of governmental excess. He complains about the war against Mexico, which reminds me of our situation with Iraq today. I tend to think our coming war with Iraq is mostly wanted…
Bibliography
Gordon, Jessica, and Woodlief, Ann, eds. 1999. "Resistance to Civil Government, or Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau. Accessed via the Internet 11/22/02. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/civil
Thoreau's Resistance To Civil Government This is a paper discussing the Henry David Thoreau's essay 'Resistance to Civil Government' and arguing that his ideas represent the extreme individualism and anarchist ideology. The renowned American author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau is considered to be one of the most influential minds in the American thought and literature. Thoreau had not only great influence on American thought but also on the politics of the
3). For both Thoreau and King, the matter of unjust laws was urgent. In his speech delivered during the March on Washington, King stated, "It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality," ("I Have a Dream"). A century earlier, Thoreau advocated the
Pharisaical practices are as popular today as they may be supposed to have been in the time of Christ -- and one of the biggest hypocrisies of our time is what Roosevelt called "the great arsenal of democracy," the shield-phrase with which the U.S. would pursue its policy of "manifest destiny" all over the globe (and an ideology it had been pursuing since the end of the 19th century when
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
Henry David Thoreau did not live a long life, however, he is perhaps America's most famous and beloved philosopher, rebel, and environmentalist. In 1846, he protested against slavery and the Mexican War by not paying his taxes and spent a night in jail (Thoreau pg). Thoreau said, He said, "It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey"
John Locke's social theory not only permits disobedience but also a revolution if the State violates its side of the contract. Martin Luther King, Jr. says that civil disobedience derives from the natural law tradition in that an unjust law is not a law but a perversion of it. He, therefore, sees consenting to obey laws as not extending or including unjust laws. At present, a new and different form