Civil Disobedience

              by Henry David Thoreau

              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 the  will
         have.   Government is  at best  but an  expedient; but  most
         governments are usually, and all governments are  sometimes,
         inexpedient.  The objections which have been brought against
         a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and  deserve
         to prevail, may also at  last be brought against a  standing
         government.   The  standing  army  is only  an  arm  of  the
         standing government. The  government itself,  which is  only
         the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will,
         is equally  liable to  be abused  and perverted  before  the
         people can act through it.  Witness the present Mexican war,
         the work  of  comparatively  a  few  individuals  using  the
         standing government as  their tool; for  in the outset,  the
         people would not have consented to this measure.
              This American government--what is  it but a  tradition,
         though  a  recent  one,   endeavoring  to  transmit   itself
         unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its
         integrity?  It has  not the vitality and  force of a  single
         living man; for a single man can bend it to his will.  It is
         a sort of wooden  gun to the people  themselves.  But it  is
         not the less necessary  for this; for  the people must  have
         some complicated machinery  or other, and  hear its din,  to
         satisfy  that   idea   of  government   which   they   have.
         Governments show thus  how successfully men  can be  imposed
         upon, even impose  on themselves, for  their own  advantage.
         It is excellent,  we must  all allow.   Yet this  government
         never  of  itself  furthered  any  enterprise,  but  by  the
         alacrity with which it got out of its way.  It does not keep
         the country free.  It does not settle the West.  It does not
         educate.  The character inherent in the American people  has
         done all that has been accomplished; and it would have  done
         somewhat more, if  the government had  not sometimes got  in
         its way.  For government is an expedient, by which men would
         fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has  been
         said, when it is most  expedient, the governed are most  let
         alone by it.  Trade and  commerce, if they were not made  of
         india-rubber, would never  manage to  bounce over  obstacles
         which legislators are continually putting in their way;  and
         if one were  to judge  these men  wholly by  the effects  of
         their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would
         deserve to be classed  and punished with those  mischievious
         persons who put obstructions on the railroads.
              But, to  speak practically  and  as a  citizen,  unlike
         those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for,  not
         at one no government, but at once a better government.   Let






         every man make known what  kind of government would  command
         his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
              After all, the practical reason why, when the power  is
         once in the hands of  the people, a majority are  permitted,
         and for a long period continue, to rule is not because  they
         are most likely to be in  the right, nor because this  seems
         fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the
         strongest.  But a government  in which the majority rule  in
         all cases can not  be based on justice,  even as far as  men
         understand it.  Can there not  be a government in which  the
         majorities do  not virtually  decide  right and  wrong,  but
         conscience?--in which majorities decide only those questions
         to which the  rule of  expediency is applicable?   Must  the
         citizen ever for a  moment, or in  the least degree,  resign
         his conscience  to the  legislator?   WHy  has every  man  a
         conscience then?  I think that  we should be men first,  and
         subjects afterward.   It  is not  desirable to  cultivate  a
         respect for the  law, so much  as for the  right.  The  only
         obligation which I have  a right to assume  is to do at  any
         time what I  think right.   It is truly  enough said that  a
         corporation  has  no  conscience;   but  a  corporation   on
         conscientious men is a corporation  with a conscience.   Law
         never made men  a whit  more just;  and, by  means of  their
         respect for it,  even the well-disposed  are daily made  the
         agents on  injustice.   A common  and natural  result of  an
         undue respect for  the law is,  that you may  see a file  of
         soldiers,    colonel,    captain,    corporal,     privates,
         powder-monkeys, and all,  marching in  admirable order  over
         hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay,  against
         their common  sense and  consciences,  which makes  it  very
         steep marching  indeed, and  produces a  palpitation of  the
         heart.  They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in
         which they are concerned;  they are all peaceably  inclined.
         Now, what are they?  Men at all?  or small movable forts and
         magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?
         Visit the Navy Yard, and behold  a marine, such a man as  an
         American government can make, or such  as it can make a  man
         with its  black  arts--a  mere shadow  and  reminiscence  of
         humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as
         one may say, buried  under arms with funeral  accompaniment,
         though it may be,

              "Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
                   As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
              Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
                   O'er the grave where out hero was buried."

              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 judgement  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 the rarely make any moral distinctions, they are  as
         likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.   A
         very few--as  heroes, patriots,  martyrs, reformers  in  the
         great sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences
         also, and so necessarily  resist it for  the most part;  and
         they are commonly treated as enemies by it.  A wise man will
         only be useful as a man,  and will not submit to be  "clay,"
         and "stop a  hole to  keep the  wind away,"  but leave  that
         office to his dust at least:

              "I am too high born to be propertied,
               To be a second at control,
               Or useful serving-man and instrument
               To any sovereign state throughout the world."

              He who gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears
         to them  useless  and  selfish; but  he  who  gives  himself
         partially  to   them   in  pronounced   a   benefactor   and
         philanthropist.
              How does it become a man to behave toward the  American
         government today?  I answer, that he cannot without disgrace
         be associated with it.   I cannot  for an instant  recognize
         that political organization  as my government  which is  the
         slave's government also.
              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.  But  almost all say that  such is not  the
         case now.    But such  was  the  case, they  think,  in  the
         Revolution of '75.  If one were  to tell me that this was  a
         bad government because it taxed certain foreign  commodities
         brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should  not
         make an  ado about  it, for  I  can do  without them.    All
         machines have their friction; and possibly this does  enough
         good to counter-balance  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 that fact that  the
         country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the  invading
         army.
              Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions,
         in  his  chapter  on  the  "Duty  of  Submission  to   Civil






         Government," resolves all civil obligation into  expediency;
         and he proceeds to say that "so long as the interest of  the
         whole  society  requires  it,  that  it,  so  long  as   the
         established government cannot be resisted or changed without
         public inconveniencey, it is  the will of  God. . .that  the
         established government  be  obeyed--and  no  longer.    This
         principle being admitted,  the justice  of every  particular
         case of  resistance  is  reduced to  a  computation  of  the
         quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of
         the probability and expense of redressing it on the  other."
         Of this, he says,  every man shall judge  for himself.   But
         Paley appears  never to  have  contemplated those  cases  to
         which the  rule of  expediency does  not apply,  in which  a
         people, as well  and an  individual, must  do justice,  cost
         what it may.   If  I have unjustly  wrested a  plank from  a
         drowning man,  I  must restore  it  to him  though  I  drown
         myself.  This,  according to Paley,  would be  inconvenient.
         But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall  lose
         it.  This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make  war
         on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.
              In their practice, nations  agree with Paley; but  does
         anyone think that Massachusetts  does exactly what is  right
         at the present crisis?

         "A drab of stat, a cloth-o'-silver slut,
          To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the
              dirt."

         Practically  speaking,  the   opponents  to   a  reform   in
         Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at  the
         South, but a  hundred thousand merchants  and farmers  here,
         who are  more interested  in commerce  and agriculture  than
         they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice  to
         the slave and to  Mexico, cost what it  may.  I quarrel  not
         with far-off  foes,  but  with  those  who,  neat  at  home,
         co-operate with, and do the bidding of, those far away,  and
         without  whom  the  latter  would  be  harmless.    We   are
         accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared;  but
         improvement is slow, because the  few are not as  materially
         wiser or better than the many.  It is not so important  that
         many should be good as you,  as that there be some  absolute
         goodness somewhere;  for that  will leaven  the whole  lump.
         There are thousands  who are in  opinion opposed to  slavery
         and to the war, who yet in  effect do nothing to put an  end
         to them; who,  esteeming themselves  children of  Washington
         and Franklin, sit  down with their  hands in their  pockets,
         and say that they know not  what to do, and do nothing;  who
         even postpone the  question of  freedom to  the question  of
         free trade, and quietly  read the prices-current along  with
         the latest advices  from Mexico, after  dinner, and, it  may
         be, fall asleep over them  both.  What is the  price-current
         of an honest man and patriot today?  They hesitate, and they
         regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing  in
         earnest and with effect.  They will wait, well disposed, for





         other to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to
         regret.  At  most, they  give up only  a cheap  vote, and  a
         feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by
         them.  There  are nine  hundred and  ninety-nine patrons  of
         virtue to one virtuous man.   But it is easier to deal  with
         the real  possessor  of  a thing  than  with  the  temporary
         guardian of it.
              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.   I  am
         willing to  leave  it  to the  majority.    Its  obligation,
         therefore, never exceeds  that of expediency.   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.
         When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition  of
         slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery,
         or because there is but little slavery left to be  abolished
         by their vote.  They will then be the only slaves.  Only his
         vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own
         freedom by his vote.
              I hear  of a  convention to  be held  at Baltimore,  or
         elsewhere,  for  the  selection  of  a  candidate  for   the
         Presidency, made  up chiefly  of editors,  and men  who  are
         politicians by profession; but  I think, what  is it to  any
         independent, intelligent, and respectable man what  decision
         they may come to?  Shall  we not have the advantage of  this
         wisdom and honesty,  nevertheless?   Can we  not count  upon
         some independent votes?  Are  there not many individuals  in
         the country who do not attend conventions?  But no:  I  find
         that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted
         from his position,  and despairs  of his  country, when  his
         country has more reasons  to despair of  him.  He  forthwith
         adopts one  of  the candidates  thus  selected as  the  only
         available one, thus proving that he is himself available for
         any purposes of the demagogue.  His vote is of no more worth
         than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling  native,
         who may have been bought.   O for a man  who is a man,  and,
         and my  neighbor says,  has a  bone is  his back  which  you
         cannot pass your hand through!  Our statistics are at fault:
         the population has been  returned too large.   How many  men
         are there to a square thousand miles in the country?  Hardly
         one.   Does not  America  offer any  inducement for  men  to
         settle  here?    The  American  has  dwindled  into  an  Odd
         Fellow--one who may be known by the development of his organ
         of gregariousness,  and a  manifest  lack of  intellect  and
         cheerful self-reliance; whose  first and  chief concern,  on
         coming into the world, is to see that the almshouses are  in
         good repair;  and, before  yet he  has lawfully  donned  the





         virile garb, to collect a fund to the support of the  widows
         and orphans that  may be;  who, in short,  ventures to  live
         only by the aid of  the Mutual Insurance company, which  has
         promised to bury him decently.
              It is  not a  man's duty,  as a  matter of  course,  to
         devote himself  to  the eradication  of  any, even  to  most
         enormous, wrong; he may  still properly have other  concerns
         to engage him;  but it is  his duty, at  least, to wash  his
         hands of it, and, if he  gives it no thought longer, not  to
         give it  practically his  support.   If I  devote myself  to
         other pursuits  and contemplations,  I  must first  see,  at
         least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another  man's
         shoulders.  I must get off him first, that he may pursue his
         contemplations  too.    See  what  gross  inconsistency   is
         tolerated.  I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I  should
         like to  have  them  order  me  out  to  help  put  down  an
         insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico--see if  I
         would go"; and  yet these  very men have  each, directly  by
         their allegiance,  and so  indirectly,  at least,  by  their
         money, furnished a substitute.  The soldier is applauded who
         refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse
         to sustain the  unjust government  which makes  the war;  is
         applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards
         and sets at naught;  as if the state  were penitent to  that
         degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned,  but
         not to that degree  that it left off  sinning for a  moment.
         Thus, under the name of  Order and Civil Government, we  are
         all made  at last  to  pay homage  to  and support  our  own
         meanness.    After  the  first   blush  of  sin  comes   its
         indifference; and  from  immoral  it becomes,  as  it  were,
         unmoral, and not  quite unnecessary  to that  life which  we
         have made.
              The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most
         disinterested virtue to sustain it.  The slight reproach  to
         which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble
         are most likely to incur.  Those who, while they  disapprove
         of the character and measures  of a government, yield to  it
         their  allegiance  and  support  are  undoubtedly  its  most
         conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious
         obstacles to  reform.   Some are  petitioning the  State  to
         dissolve the  Union, to  disregard the  requisitions of  the
         President.   Why do  they  not dissolve  it  themselves--the
         union between themselves  and the State--and  refuse to  pay
         their quota into its  treasury?  Do not  they stand in  same
         relation to the State that the State does to the Union?  And
         have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting
         the Union  which  have  prevented them  from  resisting  the
         State?
              How can a  man be  satisfied to  entertain and  opinion
         merely, and enjoy it?  Is there any enjoyment in it, if  his
         opinion is that he is aggrieved?  If you are cheated out  of
         a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest  satisfied
         with knowing you are  cheated, or with  saying that you  are
         cheated, or even with petitioning  him to pay you your  due;






         but you  take effectual  steps at  once to  obtain the  full
         amount, and  see to  it that  you are  never cheated  again.
         Action from principle, the perception and the performance of
         right, changes  things  and  relations;  it  is  essentially
         revolutionary, and  does not  consist wholly  with  anything
         which was.   It  not only  divided States  and churches,  it
         divides families; ay, it divides the individual,  separating
         the diabolical in him from the divine.
              Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or
         shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have
         succeeded, or  shall  we  transgress them  at  once?    Men,
         generally, under such a government as this, think that  they
         ought to  wait until  they have  persuaded the  majority  to
         alter them.   They think  that, if they  should resist,  the
         remedy would be worse than the evil.  But it is the fault of
         the government  itself that  the remedy  is worse  than  the
         evil. It  makes  it  worse.   Why  is  it not  more  apt  to
         anticipate and provide for reform?  Why does it not  cherish
         its wise minority?  Why does it cry and resist before it  is
         hurt?  Why does it not encourage its citizens to put out its
         faults, and do better than it would have them?  Why does  it
         always  crucify  Christ  and  excommunicate  Copernicus  and
         Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?
              One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial
         of its authority was the only offense never contemplated  by
         its government; else, why has it not assigned its  definite,
         its suitable and proportionate, penalty?   If a man who  has
         no property refuses but once to earn nine shillings for  the
         State, he is put in prison for a period unlimited by any law
         that I know, and determined only by the discretion of  those
         who put him there; but if he should steal ninety times  nine
         shillings from  the State,  he is  soon permitted  to go  at
         large again.
              If the injustice is part  of the necessary friction  of
         the machine of government, let  it go, let it go:  perchance
         it will wear  smooth--certainly the machine  will wear  out.
         If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or  a
         crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider
         whether the remedy will not be  worse than the evil; but  if
         it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the  agent
         of injustice to  another, then I  say, break the  law.   Let
         your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.  What I
         have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself
         to the wrong which I condemn.
              As for adopting the ways of the State has provided  for
         remedying the evil, I know not of such ways.  They take  too
         much time, and  a man's  life will be  gone.   I have  other
         affairs to attend to.  I  came into this world, not  chiefly
         to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it,  be
         it good  or  bad.   A  man has  not  everything to  do,  but
         something; and because  he cannot do  everything, it is  not
         necessary that he should be petitioning the Governor or  the
         Legislature any more than it  is theirs to petition me;  and
         if they should not hear my petition, what should I do  then?






         But in this  case the State  has provided no  way: its  very
         Constitution is the  evil.  This  may seem to  be harsh  and
         stubborn and unconcilliatory;  but it is  to treat with  the
         utmost kindness and consideration  the only spirit that  can
         appreciate or deserves it.  So is all change for the better,
         like birth and death, which convulse the body.
              I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  those  who   call
         themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw
         their  support,  both  in  person  and  property,  from  the
         government  of  Massachusetts,  and   not  wait  till   they
         constitute a majority of one,  before they suffer the  right
         to prevail through them.  I think that it is enough if  they
         have God on their side, without waiting for that other  one.
         Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors  constitutes
         a majority of one already.
              I meet this American government, or its representative,
         the State government,  directly, and  face to  face, once  a
         year--no more--in the  person of its  tax-gatherer; this  is
         the only mode in  which a man situated  as I am  necessarily
         meets it;  and  it then says  distinctly, Recognize me;  and
         the simplest,  the  most  effectual,  and,  in  the  present
         posture of  affairs, the  indispensablest mode  of  treating
         with it on this head, of expressing your little satisfaction
         with and  love  for  it, is  to  deny  it then.    My  civil
         neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the  very man I have to  deal
         with--for it is, after all, with men and not with  parchment
         that I quarrel--and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent
         of the government.  How shall  he ever know well that he  is
         and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until
         he is  obliged to  consider whether  he will  treat me,  his
         neighbor, for  whom  he  has  respect,  as  a  neighbor  and
         well-disposed man,  or  as a  maniac  and disturber  of  the
         peace, and see if  he can get over  this obstruction to  his
         neighborlines without a ruder and more impetuous thought  or
         speech corresponding with  his action.   I  know this  well,
         that if one  thousand, if  one hundred,  if ten  men whom  I
         could name--if ten honest men  only--ay, if one HONEST  man,
         in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were
         actually to withdraw from this co-partnership, and be locked
         up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of
         slavery in  America.   For  it  matters not  how  small  the
         beginning may seem to  be:  what is  once well done is  done
         forever.  But we love better to talk about it:  that we  say
         is our mission.  Reform  keeps many scores of newspapers  in
         its service, but not one man.  If my esteemed neighbor,  the
         State's  ambassador,  who  will  devote  his  days  to   the
         settlement of the  question of human  rights in the  Council
         Chamber, instead  of being  threatened with  the prisons  of
         Carolina, were to  sit down the  prisoner of  Massachusetts,
         that State which is so anxious  to foist the sin of  slavery
         upon her sister--though at present she can discover only  an
         act of  inhospitality to  be the  ground of  a quarrel  with
         her--the Legislature would not  wholly waive the subject  of
         the following winter.






              Under a government which  imprisons unjustly, the  true
         place for a  just man is  also a prison.   The proper  place
         today, the only place  which Massachusetts has provided  for
         her freer and less despondent spirits, is in her prisons, to
         be put out and locked  out of the State  by her own act,  as
         they have already  put themselves out  by their  principles.
         It is  there  that  the  fugitive  slave,  and  the  Mexican
         prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to plead the  wrongs
         of his race should find them; on that separate but more free
         and honorable ground, 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.   If  any
         think that their  influence would be  lost there, and  their
         voices no longer  afflict the  ear of the  State, that  they
         would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not  know
         by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much  more
         eloquently and effectively he  can combat injustice who  has
         experienced a little  in his  own person.   Cast your  whole
         vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.
         A minority is powerless while  it conforms to the  majority;
         it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible  when
         it clogs by its whole weight.  If the alternative is to keep
         all just men  in prison,  or give  up war  and slavery,  the
         State will not hesitate which to choose.  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.  If the  tax-gatherer,
         or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done,  "But
         what shall I do?"  my answer is, "If  you really wish to  do
         anything, resign your office."  When the subject has refused
         allegiance, and the officer  has resigned from office,  then
         the revolution is accomplished.  But even suppose blood shed
         when the conscience is wounded?  Through this wound a  man's
         real manhood and immortality flow  out, and he bleeds to  an
         everlasting death.  I see this blood flowing now.
              I have contemplated the  imprisonment of the  offender,
         rather than the seizure of his goods--though both will serve
         the same purpose--because they who assert the purest  right,
         and consequently  are most  dangerous  to a  corrupt  State,
         commonly have not spent much time in accumulating  property.
         To such the State renders comparatively small service, and a
         slight tax  is wont  to appear  exorbitant, particularly  if
         they are  obliged to  earn it  by special  labor with  their
         hands.  If there were one  who lived wholly without the  use
         of money, the State  itself would hesitate  to demand it  of
         him.    But  the  rich   man--not  to  make  any   invidious
         comparison--is always sold  to the  institution which  makes
         him rich.   Absolutely speaking,  the more  money, the  less
         virtue; for money comes between  a man and his objects,  and
         obtains them for him;  it was certainly  no great virtue  to
         obtain it.  It  puts to rest many  questions which he  would
         otherwise be taxed  to answer; while  the only new  question






         which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to  spend
         it.  Thus  his moral ground  is taken from  under his  feet.
         The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion  as
         that are called the "means" are increased.  The best thing a
         man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to
         carry out those  schemes which  he entertained  when he  was
         poor.   Christ answered  the  Herodians according  to  their
         condition.  "Show  me the tribute-money,"  said he--and  one
         took a penny out of his  pocket--if you use money which  has
         the image of Caesar on it, and which he has made current and
         valuable, that is, if you are  men of the State, and  gladly
         enjoy the advantages  of Caesar's government,  then pay  him
         back some of his own when he demands it.  "Render  therefore
         to Caesar that  which is  Caesar's and to  God those  things
         which are God's"--leaving  them no wiser  than before as  to
         which was which; for they did not wish to know.
              When I  converse with  the freest  of my  neighbors,  I
         perceive that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and
         seriousness of the question, and their regard for the public
         tranquillity, the long and the short of the matter is,  that
         they cannot spare the protection of the existing government,
         and they  dread  the  consequences  to  their  property  and
         families of disobedience to it.   For my own part, I  should
         not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of  the
         State.  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.
         This is hard.   This makes it impossible  for a man to  live
         honestly, and  at  the  same time  comfortably,  in  outward
         respects.   It will  not be  worth the  while to  accumulate
         property; that would be sure to go again.  You must hire  or
         squat somewhere, and raise  but a small  crop, and eat  that
         soon.   You  must  live within  yourself,  and  depend  upon
         yourself always tucked  up and  ready for a  start, and  not
         have many affairs.  A man  may grow rich in Turkey even,  if
         he will be  in all respects  a good subject  of the  Turkish
         government.  Confucius said: "If a state is governed by  the
         principles of  reason, poverty  and misery  are subjects  of
         shame; if  a state  is  not governed  by the  principles  of
         reason, riches and honors are subjects of shame."  No: until
         I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to  me
         in  some  distant  Southern   port,  where  my  liberty   is
         endangered, or  until I  am bent  solely on  building up  an
         estate at  home  by peaceful  enterprise,  I can  afford  to
         refuse allegiance  to Massachusetts,  and  her right  to  my
         property and life.  It costs me less in every sense to incur
         the penalty of disobedience  to the State  than it would  to
         obey.  I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.
              Some years  ago, the  State  met me  in behalf  of  the
         Church, and commanded  me to  pay a certain  sum toward  the
         support of a clergyman  whose preaching my father  attended,
         but never I myself.  "Pay," it said, "or be locked up in the
         jail."  I declined to pay.  But, unfortunately, another  man
         saw fit  to pay  it.   I did  not see  why the  schoolmaster






         should be taxed to  support the priest,  and not the  priest
         the schoolmaster; for  I was not  the State's  schoolmaster,
         but I supported myself by voluntary subscription.  I did not
         see why the lyceum should not present its tax bill, and have
         the State  to  back  its  demand, as  well  as  the  Church.
         However, as the request of the selectmen, I condescended  to
         make some such statement as  this in writing: "Know all  men
         by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to  be
         regarded as  a  member  of  any society  which  I  have  not
         joined."  This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it.  The
         State, having  thus  learned  that  I did  not  wish  to  be
         regarded as a member of that  church, has never made a  like
         demand on me since;  though it said that  it must adhere  to
         its original presumption that time.   If I had known how  to
         name them, I should then have signed off in detail from  all
         the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know
         where to find such a complete list.
              I have paid no poll tax for six years.  I was put  into
         a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I  stood
         considering the  walls of  solid stone,  two or  three  feet
         thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron
         grating which strained  the light,  I could  not help  being
         struck  with  the  foolishness  of  that  institution  which
         treated my as if I were  mere flesh and blood and bones,  to
         be locked up.  I wondered  that it should have concluded  at
         length that this was  the best use it  could put me to,  and
         had never thought  to avail  itself of my  services in  some
         way.  I saw that,  if there was a  wall of stone between  me
         and my townsmen,  there was  a still more  difficult one  to
         climb or break through before they  could get to be as  free
         as I was.   I did nor  for a moment  feel confined, and  the
         walls seemed a great waste of  stone and mortar.  I felt  as
         if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax.  They plainly
         did not know how to treat  me, but behaved like persons  who
         are underbred.   In  every threat  and in  every  compliment
         there was a blunder; for  they thought that my chief  desire
         was to stand the other side of that stone wall.  I could not
         but smile to see how  industriously they locked the door  on
         my meditations, which followed them out again without let or
         hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous.   As
         they could  not reach  me, they  had resolved  to punish  my
         body; just  as boys,  if  they cannot  come at  some  person
         against whom they have a spite,  will abuse his dog.  I  saw
         that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a  lone
         woman with her silver spoons, and  that it did not know  its
         friends from its foes, and  I lost all my remaining  respect
         for it, and pitied it.
              Thus the state  never intentionally  confronts a  man's
         sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses.
         It is  not armed  with superior  with or  honesty, but  with
         superior physical strength.  I was not born to be forced.  I
         will breathe after my  own fashion.  Let  us see who is  the
         strongest.  What force has a multitude?  They only can force
         me who obey a higher  law than I.   They force me to  become






         like themselves.  I do not hear of men being forced to  live
         this way or that by masses of  men.  What sort of life  were
         that to live?   When I meet a  government which says to  me,
         "Your money our your life," why should I be in haste to give
         it my money?  It may be in a great strait, and not know what
         to do: I cannot help that.  It must help itself; do as I do.
         It is not  worth the while  to snivel  about it.   I am  not
         responsible for the successful  working of the machinery  of
         society.  I  am not  the son of  the engineer.   I  perceive
         that, when an acorn  and a chestnut fall  side by side,  the
         one does not  remain inert to  make way for  the other,  but
         both obey their own laws,  and spring and grow and  flourish
         as best  they  can,  till one,  perchance,  overshadows  and
         destroys the other.   If  a plant cannot  live according  to
         nature, it dies; and so a man.
              The night in prison  was novel and interesting  enough.
         The prisoners in their shirtsleeves were enjoying a chat and
         the evening air  in the doorway,  when I entered.   But  the
         jailer said, "Come,  boys, it is  time to lock  up"; and  so
         they dispersed,  and  I  heard  the  sound  of  their  steps
         returning into  the hollow  apartments.   My  room-mate  was
         introduced to me by the  jailer as "a first-rate fellow  and
         clever man."  When the door  was locked, he showed me  where
         to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there.  The rooms
         were whitewashed once a month;  and this one, at least,  was
         the whitest,  most simply  furnished, and  probably  neatest
         apartment in town.  He naturally wanted to know where I came
         from, and what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I
         asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to  be
         an honest an, of course; and as the world goes, I believe he
         was. "Why," said he, "they accuse me of burning a barn;  but
         I never  did it."   As  near  as I  could discover,  he  had
         probably gone to bed  in a barn when  drunk, and smoked  his
         pipe there; and so a barn was burnt.  He had the  reputation
         of being  a clever  man, had  been there  some three  months
         waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait  as
         much longer; but  he was quite  domesticated and  contented,
         since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he  was
         well treated.
              He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that
         if one stayed there long, his principal business would be to
         look out the window.   I had soon  read all the tracts  that
         were left  there, and  examined where  former prisoners  had
         broken out, and where a grate had been sawed off, and  heard
         the history of  the various  occupants of that  room; for  I
         found that even there there was a history and a gossip which
         never circulated beyond  the walls  of the  jail.   Probably
         this is  the  only  house  in  the  town  where  verses  are
         composed, which are  afterward printed in  a circular  form,
         but not published.  I was  shown quite a long list of  young
         men who  had been  detected  in an  attempt to  escape,  who
         avenged themselves by singing them.






              I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear
         I should never  see him again;  but at length  he showed  me
         which was my bed, and left me to blow out the lamp.
              It was like travelling  into a far  country, such as  I
         had never expected to  behold, to lie  there for one  night.
         It seemed to me that I never had heard the town clock strike
         before, not the evening sounds of the village; for we  slept
         with the windows open,  which were inside  the grating.   It
         was to see  my native  village in  the light  of the  Middle
         Ages, and our Concord  was turned into  a Rhine stream,  and
         visions of knights and castles passed before me.  They  were
         the voices of old burghers that  I heard in the streets.   I
         was an  involuntary spectator  and auditor  of whatever  was
         done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village  inn--a
         wholly new and rare experience to me.  It was a closer  view
         of my native town.  I was fairly inside of it.  I never  had
         seen its institutions before.   This is one of its  peculiar
         institutions; for it is a shire town.  I began to comprehend
         what its inhabitants were about.
              In the  morning, our  breakfasts were  put through  the
         hole in the door, in  small oblong-square tin pans, made  to
         fit, and holding a pint of chocolate, with brown bread,  and
         an iron spoon.   When they called for  the vessels again,  I
         was green enough  to return what  bread I had  left, but  my
         comrade seized it, and  said that I should  lay that up  for
         lunch or  dinner.   Soon after  he was  let out  to work  at
         haying in a  neighboring field, whither  he went every  day,
         and would not  be back till  noon; so he  bade me good  day,
         saying that he doubted if he should see me again.
              When I came out of prison--for some one interfered, and
         paid that tax--I  did not  perceive that  great changes  had
         taken place on the common, such as he observed who went in a
         youth and emerged a  gray-headed man; and  yet a change  had
         come to my eyes  come over the  scene--the town, and  State,
         and country, greater than any  that mere time could  effect.
         I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived.  I saw
         to what  extent  the people  among  whom I  lived  could  be
         trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship
         was for  summer  weather only;  that  they did  not  greatly
         propose to do right; that they were a distinct race from  me
         by their prejudices and  superstitions, as the Chinamen  and
         Malays are that in their sacrifices to humanity they ran  no
         risks, not even to their property; that after all they  were
         not so noble but  they treated the thief  as he had  treated
         them, and hoped, by a  certain outward observance and a  few
         prayers, and  by walking  in a  particular straight  through
         useless path from time to time,  to save their souls.   This
         may be to  judge my  neighbors harshly; for  I believe  that
         many  of  them  are  not  aware  that  they  have  such   an
         institution as the jail in their village.
              It was formerly the custom in our village, when a  poor
         debtor came out  of jail,  for his  acquaintances to  salute
         him, looking through  their fingers, which  were crossed  to
         represent the jail window, "How do ye do?"  My neighbors did






         not this salute me, but first looked at me, and then at  one
         another, as if I  had returned from a  long journey.  I  was
         put into jail  as I was  going to the  shoemaker's to get  a
         shoe which was mender.  When I was let out the next morning,
         I proceeded  to finish  my  errand, and,  having put  on  my
         mended show, joined a huckleberry party, who were  impatient
         to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour--for
         the  horse  was  soon  tackled--was   in  the  midst  of   a
         huckleberry field, on  one of our  highest hills, two  miles
         off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
              This is the whole history of "My Prisons."
              I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I
         am as desirous of being a good  neighbor as I am of being  a
         bad subject; and as  for supporting schools,  I am doing  my
         part to educate  my fellow  countrymen now.   It  is for  no
         particular item in the tax bill that I refuse to pay it.   I
         simply wish to refuse allegiance  to the State, to  withdraw
         and stand aloof from it effectually.  I do not care to trace
         the course of my dollar,  if I could, till  it buys a man  a
         musket to shoot one with--the  dollar is innocent--but I  am
         concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance.  In fact, I
         quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though
         I will still make use and get what advantages of her I  can,
         as is usual in such cases.
              If others pay the tax which  is demanded of me, from  a
         sympathy with the State, they do but what they have  already
         done in their own case, or  rather they abet injustice to  a
         greater extent than the State requires.  If they pay the tax
         from a mistaken  interest in the  individual taxed, to  save
         his property, or prevent  his going to  jail, it is  because
         they have  not  considered wisely  how  far they  let  their
         private feelings interfere with the public good.
              This, then is my position  at present.  But one  cannot
         be too much on his guard in such a case, lest his actions be
         biased by obstinacy or an  undue regard for the opinions  of
         men.  Let him see that he does only what belongs to  himself
         and to the hour.
              I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are
         only ignorant; they would  do better if  they knew how:  why
         give your neighbors this pain to  treat you as they are  not
         inclined to?   But I think  again, This is  no reason why  I
         should do  as  they do,  or  permit others  to  suffer  much
         greater pain of a different kind.  Again, I sometimes say to
         myself, When many millions of men, without heat, without ill
         will, without personal feelings of any kind, demand of you a
         few shillings only, without  the possibility, such is  their
         constitution,  of  retracting  or  altering  their   present
         demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal
         to  any  other  millions,   why  expose  yourself  to   this
         overwhelming brute  force?    You do  not  resist  cold  and
         hunger, the  winds  and  the waves,  thus  obstinately;  you
         quietly submit to  a thousand similar  necessities.  You  do
         not put your head into the fire.  But just in proportion  as
         I regard this  as not  wholly a  brute force,  but partly  a






         human force, and  consider that  I have  relations to  those
         millions as to  so many  millions of  men, and  not of  mere
         brute or inanimate  things, I see  that appeal is  possible,
         first and instantaneously, from them  to the Maker of  them,
         and, secondly, from  them to themselves.   But if  I put  my
         head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to  fire
         or to the Maker for fire,  and I have only myself to  blame.
         If I  could convince  myself that  I have  any right  to  be
         satisfied  with  men  as  they   are,  and  to  treat   them
         accordingly, and  not according,  in  some respects,  to  my
         requisitions and expectations  of what they  and I ought  to
         be, then,  like  a good  Mussulman  and fatalist,  I  should
         endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are, and say it
         is the  will  of  God.    And,  above  all,  there  is  this
         difference between  resisting this  and  a purely  brute  or
         natural force, that I can resist this with some effect;  but
         I cannot expect, like Orpheus,  to change the nature of  the
         rocks and trees and beasts.
              I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation.  I  do
         not wish to split hairs,  to make fine distinctions, or  set
         myself up as better than my neighbors.  I seek rather, I may
         say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the  land.
         I am  but too  ready to  conform to  them.   Indeed, I  have
         reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the
         tax-gatherer comes round, I  find myself disposed to  review
         the acts and position of the general and State  governments,
         and the  spirit of  the  people to  discover a  pretext  for
         conformity.

              "We must affect our country as our parents,
               And if at any time we alienate
               Out love or industry from doing it honor,
               We must respect effects and teach the soul
               Matter of conscience and religion,
               And not desire of rule or benefit."

         I believe that the  State will soon be  able to take all  my
         work of this sort out  of my hands, and  then I shall be  no
         better patriot than my fellow-countrymen.  Seen from a lower
         point of view,  the Constitution,  with all  its faults,  is
         very good; the law and the courts are very respectable; even
         this  State  and  this  American  government  are,  in  many
         respects, very admirable,  and rare things,  to be  thankful
         for, such as a great many  have described them; seen from  a
         higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they  are,
         or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all?
              However, the government does not concern me much, and I
         shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it.  It is  not
         many moments that I  live under a  government, even in  this
         world.      If   a   man   is   thought-free,    fancy-free,
         imagination-free, that which  is not never  for a long  time
         appearing to be  to him, unwise  rulers or reformers  cannot
         fatally interrupt him.






              I know that most men think differently from myself; but
         those whose lives are by profession devoted to the study  of
         these or  kindred  subjects content  me  as little  as  any.
         Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the
         institution, never distinctly and  nakedly behold it.   They
         speak of moving society,  but have no resting-place  without
         it.    They  may  be   men  of  a  certain  experience   and
         discrimination, and  have no  doubt invented  ingenious  and
         even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them;  but
         all their wit  and usefulness  lie within  certain not  very
         wide limits.  They are wont to forget that the world is  not
         governed by  policy  and  expediency.   Webster  never  goes
         behind government, and so cannot speak with authority  about
         it.    His  words  are  wisdom  to  those  legislators   who
         contemplate no essential reform in the existing  government;
         but for thinkers, and  those who legislate  for all tim,  he
         never once glances at  the subject.  I  know of those  whose
         serene and wise speculations on this theme would soon reveal
         the limits  of  his  mind's range  and  hospitality.    Yet,
         compared with the cheap  professions of most reformers,  and
         the still  cheaper wisdom  an  eloquence of  politicians  in
         general, his  are  almost  the only  sensible  and  valuable
         words, and we thank  Heaven for him.   Comparatively, he  is
         always strong, original, and, above all, practical.   Still,
         his quality is not wisdom, but prudence.  The lawyer's truth
         is not Truth,  but consistency or  a consistent  expediency.
         Truth  is  always  in  harmony  with  herself,  and  is  not
         concerned chiefly  to reveal  the justice  that may  consist
         with wrong-doing.  He well deserves to be called, as he  has
         been called, the  Defender of the  Constitution.  There  are
         really no blows to be given  him but defensive ones.  He  is
         not a leader, but  a follower.  His  leaders are the men  of
         '87. "I  have never  made an  effort," he  says, "and  never
         propose to  make an  effort; I  have never  countenanced  an
         effort, and never mean to countenance an effort, to  disturb
         the arrangement as originally made, by which various  States
         came into the Union."  Still thinking of the sanction  which
         the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, "Because it  was
         part   of    the    original   compact--let    it    stand."
         Notwithstanding his  special acuteness  and ability,  he  is
         unable to take a fact out of its merely political relations,
         and behold it as it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the
         intellect--what, for instance, it behooves a man to do  here
         in American today with  regard to slavery--but ventures,  or
         is driven,  to  make  some  such  desperate  answer  to  the
         following, while professing  to speak absolutely,  and as  a
         private man--from  which what  new  and singular  of  social
         duties might be inferred?  "The manner," says he, "in  which
         the governments of  the States where  slavery exists are  to
         regulate it  is  for  their  own  consideration,  under  the
         responsibility to their constituents, to the general laws of
         propriety, humanity, and justice, and to God.   Associations
         formed elsewhere, springing from  a feeling of humanity,  or
         any other cause, have nothing whatever to do with it.   They






         have never received any encouragement from me and they never
         will. [These extracts have  been inserted since the  lecture
         was read -HDT]
              They who know of  no purer sources  of truth, who  have
         traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand,  by
         the Bible and the Constitution,  and drink at it there  with
         reverence and humanity; but they  who behold where it  comes
         trickling into this lake or  that pool, gird up their  loins
         once  more,  and  continue   their  pilgrimage  toward   its
         fountainhead.
              No man with  a genius for  legislation has appeared  in
         America.  They are rare in the history of the world.   There
         are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand;
         but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is
         capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day.  We
         love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which
         it  may  utter,  or  any  heroism  it  may  inspire.     Our
         legislators have not  yet learned the  comparative value  of
         free trade and of  freed, of union, and  of rectitude, to  a
         nation.  They  have no  genius or  talent for  comparatively
         humble questions  of  taxation  and  finance,  commerce  and
         manufactures and agriculture.  If we were left solely to the
         wordy wit  of  legislators  in Congress  for  our  guidance,
         uncorrected by the seasonable  experience and the  effectual
         complaints of the people, America would not long retain  her
         rank among the nations.  For eighteen hundred years,  though
         perchance I have no right to  say it, the New Testament  has
         been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and
         practical talent enough to avail himself of the light  which
         it sheds on the science of legislation.
              The authority of government, even such as I am  willing
         to submit to--for I will cheerfully obey those who know  and
         can do better  than I,  and in  many things  even those  who
         neither know nor can do so well--is still an impure one:  to
         be strictly just, it must  have the sanction and consent  of
         the governed.  It can have no pure right over my person  and
         property but what  I concede to  it.  The  progress from  an
         absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a
         democracy, is  a  progress toward  a  true respect  for  the
         individual.  Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to
         regard the individual  as the  basis of  the empire.   Is  a
         democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible
         in government?  Is  it not possible to  take a step  further
         towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man?  There
         will never be a really free and enlightened State until  the
         State comes  to recognize  the individual  as a  higher  and
         independent  power,  from  which  all  its  own  power   and
         authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.  I please
         myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be
         just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as
         a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent  with
         its own repose  if a  few were to  live aloof  from it,  not
         meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all  the
         duties of neighbors and fellow men.  A State which bore this






         kind of fruit,  and suffered it  to drop off  as fast as  it
         ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect  and
         glorious State,  which I  have also  imagined, but  not  yet
         anywhere seen.

              Typed by:
                        Sameer Parekh ([email protected])  1-12-91

You are viewing proxied material from infinitelyremote.com. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.