Civil Disobedience - Part 2 of 3
by Henry
David Thoreau - 1849
Civil
Disobedience - 3
[1]
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,(1)
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?
[2]
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 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
individual, separating the diabolical in him
from the divine.
[3]
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 be on the alert to
point out its faults, and do better than
it would have them? Why does it always crucify
Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus
(2)
and Luther,(3)
and pronounce Washington and Franklin
rebels?
[4]
One would think, that a deliberate and practical
denial of its authority was the only offence
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.
[5]
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.
[6]
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 an change for
the better, like birth and death which convulse
the body.
[7]
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.
[8]
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;(4)
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,(5)
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.
[9]
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 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.
[10]
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 Cæsar 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 Cæsar's government, then pay him
back some of his own when he demands it; "Render
therefore to Cæsar that which is Cæsar's, and to
God those things which are God's"(6)—leaving
them no wiser than before as to which was which;
for they did not wish to know.
[11]
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;(7)
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.
[12]
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
(8) 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.
[13]
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.
[14]
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
have 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.
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