On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau (ereader for android .TXT) 📕

This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient.

But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it.

This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war

on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.

In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does

anyone think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right

at the present crisis?

“A drab of stat,

a cloth-o’-silver slut,

To have her train borne up,

and her soul trail in the dirt.”

Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in

Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the

South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here,

who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than

they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to

the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not

with far-off foes, but with those who, neat at home,

co-operate with, and do the bidding of, those far away, and

without whom the latter would be harmless. We are

accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but

improvement is slow, because the few are not as materially

wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that

many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute

goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.

There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery

and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end

to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington

and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets,

and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who

even postpone the question of freedom to the question of

free trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with

the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may

be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current

of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate, and they

regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in

earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for

other to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to

regret. At most, they give up only a cheap vote, and a

feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by

them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of

virtue to one virtuous man. But it is easier to deal with

the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary

guardian of it.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or

backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with

right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally

accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked.

I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not

vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am

willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation,

therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting

for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only

expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail.

A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance,

nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.

There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.

When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of

slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery,

or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished

by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his

vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own

freedom by his vote.

I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or

elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the

Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are

politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to any

independent, intelligent, and respectable man what decision

they may come to? Shall we not have the advantage of this

wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we not count upon

some independent votes? Are there not many individuals in

the country who do not attend conventions? But no: I find

that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted

from his position, and despairs of his country, when his

country has more reasons to despair of him. He forthwith

adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only

available one, thus proving that he is himself available for

any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth

than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native,

who may have been bought. O for a man who is a man, and,

and my neighbor says, has a bone is his back which you

cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault:

the population has been returned too large. How many men

are there to a square thousand miles in the country?

Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men

to settle here? The American has dwindled into an Odd

Fellow—one who may be known by the development of his organ

of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and

cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on

coming into the world, is to see that the almshouses are in

good repair; and, before yet he has lawfully donned the

virile garb, to collect a fund to the support of the widows

and orphans that may be; who, in short, ventures to live

only by the aid of the Mutual Insurance company, which has

promised to bury him decently.

It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to

devote himself to the eradication of any, even to most

enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other concerns

to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his

hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to

give it practically his support. If I devote myself to

other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at

least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s

shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his

contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated.

I have heard some of my townsmen say, “I should like to

have them order me out to help put down an insurrection

of the slaves, or to march to Mexico—see if I would go”;

and yet these very men have each, directly by their

allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money,

furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who

refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse

to sustain the unjust government which makes the war;

is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards

and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that

degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but

not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment.

Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are

all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from

immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary

to that life which we have made.

The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most

disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to

which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble

are most likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove

of the character and measures of a government, yield to it

their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most

conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious

obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to

dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the

President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves—the

union between themselves and the State—and refuse to pay

their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in same

relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And

have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting

the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?

How can a man be satisfied to entertain and opinion

merely, and enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his

opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of

a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied

with knowing you are cheated, or with saying that you are

cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due;

but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full

amount, and see to it that you are never cheated again.

Action from principle, the perception and the performance of

right, changes things and relations; it is essentially

revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything

which was. It not only divided States and churches, it

divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating

the diabolical in him from the divine.

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or

shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have

succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men,

generally, under such a government as this, think that they

ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to

alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the

remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of

the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil.

It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and

provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority?

Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not

encourage its citizens to put out its faults, and do better than

it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ and

excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington

and Franklin rebels?

One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial

of its authority was the only offense never contemplated by

its government; else, why has it not assigned its definite,

its suitable and proportionate, penalty? If a man who has

no property refuses but once to earn nine shillings for the

State, he is put in prison for a period unlimited by any law

that I know, and determined only by the discretion of those

who put him there; but if he should steal ninety times nine

shillings from the State, he is soon permitted to go at

large again.

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of

the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance

it will wear smooth—certainly the machine will wear out.

If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a

crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider

whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if

it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent

of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let

your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I

have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself

to the wrong which I condemn.

As for adopting the ways of the State has provided for

remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too

much time, and a man’s life will be gone. I have other

affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly

to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it,

be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but

something; and because he cannot do everything, it is

not necessary