1849

                               CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

                             by Henry David 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 mischievous 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
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 legislation? 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 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 accompaniments, 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