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\newcommand\fulltitle{Civil Disobedience}
\newcommand\fullauthor{Henry David Thoreau}
\newcommand\shortauthor{H.~D.~Thoreau}

\newcommand\prepared{This essay was originally published in May 1849
under the title ``Resistance to Civil Government'' and reprinted in
1866 under the title ``Civil Disobedience.'' The present text was
prepared by Kelly A.~Parker, based on \textit{The Writings of Henry
David Thoreau}, Walden Edition, vol.~4 (Cambridge, MA: The Riverside
Press, 1906), pp.~356-387. Page images were obtained from the Thoreau
Institute at Walden Woods Library
<\url{http://www.walden.org/Institute/thoreau/writings/essays/Essays.htm}>.}

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%  /Author (Kelly A. Parker)
%  /Title (Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience)
%  /Keywords (Thoreau Civil Disobedience American politics essay)
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\textsc{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 they 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 on, 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. \textit{It} does not keep the country
free. \textit{It} does not settle the West. \textit{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 the 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 once no government,
but \textit{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 cannot 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 of conscientious men is a corporation
\textit{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 of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect
for 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 accompaniments, though it may be,\,---\,

\newlength{\saveleftmargini}    %save the default setting   
\setlength{\saveleftmargini}{\leftmargini}
\small \setlength{\leftmargini}{1em}

\begin{verse}
``Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,\\
\hspace{1em}As his corse to the rampart we hurried;\\
\hspace{1ex}Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot\\
\hspace{1em}O'er the grave where our hero we buried.''
\end{verse}

\setlength{\leftmargini}{\saveleftmargini} % restore original value
\normalsize

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, \textit{posse comitatus}, etc. In 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 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 they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as
likely to serve the devil, without \textit{intending} it, as God. A
very few\,---\,as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great
sense, and \textit{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:\,---\,

\small \setlength{\leftmargini}{1em}

\begin{verse}
``I am too high-born to be propertied,\\
\hspace{1ex}To be a secondary at control,\\
\hspace{1ex}Or useful serving-man and instrument\\
\hspace{1ex}To any sovereign state throughout the world.''
\end{verse}

\setlength{\leftmargini}{\saveleftmargini} % restore original value
\normalsize

He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them
useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is
pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.

How does it become a man to behave toward this American government
to-day? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with
it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as
\textit{my} government which is the \textit{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 counterbalance 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 is, so long as the
established government cannot be resisted or changed without public
inconveniency, 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 as 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?

\small \setlength{\leftmargini}{1em}

\begin{verse}
``A drab of state, a cloth-o'-silver slut,\\
\hspace{1ex}To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the dirt.''
\end{verse}

\setlength{\leftmargini}{\saveleftmargini} % restore original value
\normalsize

\noindent{}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, \textit{cost what
it may}. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near 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 materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so
important that many should be as good as you, as that there be some
absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole
lump. There are thousands who are \textit{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 to-day? 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. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and
a feeble countenance and God-speed, 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 \textit{for the right} is
\textit{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. \textit{They} will then be the only slaves. Only \textit{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 his
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 reason to despair of him. He
forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only
\textit{available} one, thus proving that he is himself \textit{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 \textit{man}, and, as my neighbor
says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through!
Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too
large. How many \textit{men} are there to a square thousand miles in
this 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 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. 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,
\textit{un}moral, 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 the 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 an opinion merely, and enjoy
\textit{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 that 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 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 divides states and
churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the \textit{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 \textit{is} worse than the
evil. \textit{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 be on the alert to point out its faults, and
\textit{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 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 placed 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 which 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 \textit{everything}, it is not
necessary that he should do \textit{something} wrong. It is not my
business to 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 unconciliatory; 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 what he is and does as an officer of the government,
or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he shall 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 neighborliness 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 \textit{honest} men
only,\,---\,ay, if \textit{one} \textsc{honest} man, in this State of
Massachusetts, \textit{ceasing to hold slaves}, were actually to
withdraw from this copartnership, 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 the following winter.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a
just man is also a prison. The proper place to-day, the only place
which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding
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 \textit{with} her but
\textit{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 his office, then the revolution is
accomplished. But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort
of 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; and 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 what 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 C{\ae}sar on it, and which he has made current and valuable, that
is, \textit{if you are men of the State}, and gladly enjoy the
advantages of C{\ae}sar's government, then pay him back some of his
own when he demands it; ``Render therefore to C{\ae}sar that which is
C{\ae}sar'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 the 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, at 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 incorporated
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 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 me 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 not 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
\textit{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 wit 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 \textit{men} being \textit{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 or 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 its nature, it dies; and so a man.\bigskip{}

The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in
their shirt-sleeves 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 the neatest apartment in the 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 man, 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 here 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 verses which were composed by some 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, nor 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
tottering and gray-headed man; and yet a change had 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
purpose 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 grating of a jail window,
``How do ye do?'' My neighbors did not thus 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 mended. When I was let out the next morning, I
proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe,
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.''\bigskip

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 or 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
advantage 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 action 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 feeling 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.

% The following verse is not included in the Princeton ed. It was not in the 1849 printing.

\small \setlength{\leftmargini}{1em}

\begin{verse}
``We must affect our country as our parents,\\
\hspace{1ex}And if at any time we alienate\\
\hspace{1ex}Our love or industry from doing it honor,\\
\hspace{1ex}We must respect effects and teach the soul\\
\hspace{1ex}Matter of conscience and religion,\\
\hspace{1ex}And not desire of rule or benefit.''
\end{verse}

\setlength{\leftmargini}{\saveleftmargini} % restore original value
\normalsize

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 a 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; but seen from a point of view a
little higher, they are what I 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 \textit{is not} never for a
long time appearing \textit{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 time, 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 and 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 by
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 the various States came into
the Union.'' Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution
gives to slavery, he says, ``Because it was a 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 America to-day with regard to slavery,\,---\,but ventures, or is
driven, to make some such desperate answer as the following, while
professing to speak absolutely, and as a private man,\,---\,from which
what new and singular code of social duties might be inferred? ``The
manner,'' says he, ``in which the governments of those States where
slavery exists are to regulate it is for their own consideration,
under their 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.''\footnote{These extracts
have been inserted since the lecture was read.}

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 humility; 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 fountain-head.

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
freedom, 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 also I have imagined, but not
yet anywhere seen.

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