On the Duty of Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau (books for 10th graders txt) 📗

that he should 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 unconcilliatory; 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 that he is

and does as an officer of the government, or as a man,

until he is obliged to consider whether he will 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

neighborlines 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 co-partnership, 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 of

the following winter.

 

Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true

place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place

today, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for

her freer and less despondent 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 from office, then

the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose 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

that 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 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, as 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 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 my 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