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

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

Out 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; 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 tim, 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 an 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

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 American today with regard to slavery—but ventures, or

is driven, to make some such desperate answer to 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 the

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.” [These extracts have been inserted since the lecture

was read -HDT]

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

fountainhead.

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 t may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our

legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of

free trade and of freed, 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.

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