Thoreau: Civil Disobedience

Thoreau, Henry David: Civil Disobedience; Dover Thrift Editions, New York, 1993

Written in 1849, this essay is in a collection with several others from 1849-1863.  The others range from Slavery to Walking; and an essay on 'Life Without Principle."  Civil Disobedience deals with what Thoreau feels a man must do (or not do) if he fundamentally disagrees with certain actions the State is either initiating, supporting or participating in.  In this essay, Thoreau feels the government is immorally supporting slavery and the war on Mexico.  For Thoreau, if a man disagrees with his government, then he can't support it.  

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to and resist the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. Pg 3

For Thoreau, the obligation to act according to your conscience is wide-ranging.

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. Pg 5

Thoreau doesn't feel that every man has to feel - and act - as he does, but he does feel strongly that you have to come down strongly on what your moral values are, what your conscience is.

It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the 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. Pg 6

“How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it? Pg 7 

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Pg 2 

The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right. 

This means not paying taxes as well as not supporting anything which does not support your conscience - which could mean buying newspapers, supporting a business, voting etc.

What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. Pg 8

Thoreau goes on to discuss how one lives in a community and MUST act according to his conscience:

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law so much as for the right. Pg 2 

 most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment 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 serve the purpose as well. Pg 3  

… Those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it may. Pg 4  

… A hundred thousand merchants and farmers […] who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice […] cost what it may. Pg 4  

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 others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. Pg 5  

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. Pg 9

I saw to what extent the people among who I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly purpose to do right; that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions […]; 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 though useless path from time to time, to save their souls. Pg 14

While Thoreau feels that an individual must take overt action regarding what is going on around him:

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. pg 16

The authority of government […] 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. 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.  Pg 18

He feels that these actions in keeping with our conscience, are crucial to a principled life - and that the individual is the key entity, not the community or the government.

Action from principle, - the perception and the performance of right, - changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with any thing which was.  It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; aye, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine. Pg 7 

I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one [majority of one]. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors, constitutes a majority of one already. Pg 8   

I enjoyed reading Thoreau.  I didn't agree with every nuance but in principle I agree that you have to act according to your conscience in every way, you can't evade it by agreeing in principle with something, by voting, by abdicating responsibility to authority.