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The Thoreau Institute
at Walden Woods Library
Thoreau's
Life & Writings
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Civil
disobedience
by Henry D. 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 our hero we
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 they 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 secondary 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 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 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 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 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 state, 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, near at home, co-öperate 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 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
up 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 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 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 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 in 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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
point 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 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 everything, it is not necessary that he
should do 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 honest men only,—ay, if one HONEST
man, in this State of Massachusetts, 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 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 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 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; 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
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 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 incorpoarted
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
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 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 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 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.
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 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 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 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 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 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 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."
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
Our 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; 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. [Thoreau’s
Note: "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 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
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 I have also
imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.
A
Note on the Text:
-
1st
published as "Resistance to Civil Government" in Aesthetic
Papers (1849).
-
Source:
Cape Cod and Miscellanies [The Writings of Henry David
Thoreau] (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906) p. [356]-387.
-
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