1 November 1993
2
3
4 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
5
6 ............. Henry David Thoreau
7
8 ==========================
9 I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which
10 governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more
11 rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to
12 this, which also I believe--"That government is best which
13 governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will
14 be the kind of government which the will have. Government is at
15 best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all
16 governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have
17 been brought against a standing army, and they are many and
18 weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought
19 against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm
20 of the standing government. The government itself, which is only
21 the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is
22 equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can
23 act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of
24 comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as
25 their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have
26 consented to this measure.
27 This American government--what is it but a tradition, though
28 a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to
29 posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has
30 not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single
31 man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the
32 people themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for
33 the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and
34 hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.
35 Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon,
36 even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is
37 excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of itself
38 furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got
39 out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not
40 settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in
41 the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and
42 it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not
43 sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient, by
44 which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and,
45 as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are
46 most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made
47 of india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles
48 which legislators are continually putting in their way; and if
49 one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their
50 actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to
51 be classed and punished with those mischievious persons who put
52 obstructions on the railroads.
53 But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who
54 call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at one no
55 government, but at once a better government. Let every man make
56 known what kind of government would command his respect, and that
57 will be one step toward obtaining it. After all, the practical
58 reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a
59 majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule
60 is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor
61 because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are
62 physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority
63 rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men
64 understand it. Can there not be a government in which the
65 majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but
66 conscience?--in which majorities decide only those questions to
67 which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever
68 for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to
69 the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that
70 we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not
71 desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the
72 right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to
73 do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a
74 corporation has no conscience; but a corporation on conscientious
75 men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit
76 more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-
77 disposed are daily made the agents on injustice. A common and
78 natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may
79 see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates,
80 powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill
81 and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their
82 common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching
83 indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no
84 doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned;
85 they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all?
86 or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some
87 unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy Yard, and behold a
88 marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as
89 it can make a man with its black arts--a mere shadow and
90 reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and
91 already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral
92 accompaniment, though it may be,
93
94 "Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
95 As his corse to the rampart we hurried; Not a soldier
96 discharged his farewell shot
97 O'er the grave where out hero was buried."
98
99 The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but
100 as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and
101 the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most
102 cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of
103 the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and
104 earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that
105 will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than
106 men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth
107 only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly
108 esteemed good citizens. Others--as most legislators, politicians,
109 lawyers, ministers, and office-holders--serve the state chiefly
110 with their heads; and, as the rarely make any moral distinctions,
111 they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as
112 God. A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the
113 great sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences
114 also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they
115 are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be
116 useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay," and "stop a
117 hole to keep the wind away," but leave that office to his dust at
118 least:
119
120 "I am too high born to be propertied,
121 To be a second at control,
122 Or useful serving-man and instrument
123 To any sovereign state throughout the world."
124
125 He who gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears to
126 them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to
127 them in pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.
128 How does it become a man to behave toward the American
129 government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be
130 associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that
131 political organization as my government which is the slave's
132 government also.
133 All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the
134 right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government,
135 when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
136 But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was
137 the case, they think, in the Revolution of '75. If one were to
138 tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain
139 foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable
140 that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without
141 them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does
142 enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is a
143 great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes
144 to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I
145 say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words,
146 when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken
147 to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is
148 unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected
149 to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men
150 to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent
151 is that fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours
152 is the invading army.
153 Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, in
154 his chapter on the "Duty of Submission to Civil Government,"
155 resolves all civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to
156 say that "so long as the interest of the whole society requires
157 it, that it, so long as the established government cannot be
158 resisted or changed without public inconveniencey, it is the will
159 of God... that the established government be obeyed--and no
160 longer. This principle being admitted, the justice of every
161 particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the
162 quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the
163 probability and expense of redressing it on the other." Of this,
164 he says, every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears
165 never to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of
166 expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well and an
167 individual, must do justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly
168 wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him
169 though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be
170 inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case,
171 shall lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make
172 war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.
173 In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does anyone
174 think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the
175 present crisis?
176
177 "A drab of stat, a cloth-o'-silver slut,
178 To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the dirt."
179
180 Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in
181 Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the
182 South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are
183 more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in
184 humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to
185 Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but
186 with those who, neat at home, co-operate with, and do the bidding
187 of, those far away, and without whom the latter would be
188 harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are
189 unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not as
190 materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so important
191 that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute
192 goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. There
193 are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the
194 war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who,
195 esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit
196 down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know
197 not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of
198 freedom to the question of free trade, and quietly read the
199 prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after
200 dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the
201 price-current of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate,
202 and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing
203 in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for
204 other to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to
205 regret. At most, they give up only a cheap vote, and a feeble
206 countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by them. There
207 are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one
208 virtuous man. But it is easier to deal with the real possessor of
209 a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.
210 All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon,
211 with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong,
212 with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The
213 character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance,
214 as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right
215 should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its
216 obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even
217 voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only
218 expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A
219 wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor
220 wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is
221 but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the
222 majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it
223 will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there
224 is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They
225 will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the
226 abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.
227 I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or
228 elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the Presidency,
229 made up chiefly of editors, and men who are politicians by
230 profession; but I think, what is it to any independent,
231 intelligent, and respectable man what decision they may come to?
232 Shall we not have the advantage of this wisdom and honesty,
233 nevertheless? Can we not count upon some independent votes? Are
234 there not many individuals in the country who do not attend
235 conventions? But no: I find that the respectable man, so called,
236 has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his
237 country, when his country has more reasons to despair of him. He
238 forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only
239 available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any
240 purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that
241 of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have
242 been bought. O for a man who is a man, and, and my neighbor says,
243 has a bone is his back which you cannot pass your hand through!
244 Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too
245 large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in the
246 country? Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for
247 men to settle here? The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow-
248 -one who may be known by the development of his organ of
249 gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and cheerful
250 self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on coming into the
251 world, is to see that the almshouses are in good repair; and,
252 before yet he has lawfully donned the virile garb, to collect a
253 fund to the support of the widows and orphans that may be; who,
254 in short, ventures to live only by the aid of the Mutual
255 Insurance company, which has promised to bury him decently.
256 It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote
257 himself to the eradication of any, even to most enormous, wrong;
258 he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it
259 is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives
260 it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If
261 I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must
262 first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon
263 another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may
264 pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is
265 tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I should like
266 to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the
267 slaves, or to march to Mexico--see if I would go"; and yet these
268 very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so
269 indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The
270 soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by
271 those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which
272 makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority
273 he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent
274 to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned,
275 but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment.
276 Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all
277 made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. After
278 the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral
279 it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to
280 that life which we have made.
281 The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most
282 disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which
283 the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most
284 likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove of the
285 character and measures of a government, yield to it their
286 allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious
287 supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to
288 reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to
289 disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not
290 dissolve it themselves--the union between themselves and the
291 State--and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not
292 they stand in same relation to the State that the State does to
293 the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from
294 resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the
295 State?
296 How can a man be satisfied to entertain and opinion merely,
297 and enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is
298 that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar
299 by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing you are
300 cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with
301 petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps
302 at once to obtain the full amount, and see to it that you are
303 never cheated again. Action from principle, the perception and
304 the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is
305 essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with
306 anything which was. It not only divided States and churches, it
307 divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the
308 diabolical in him from the divine.
309 Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or
310 shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have
311 succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men, generally,
312 under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait
313 until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think
314 that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the
315 evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the
316 remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not
317 more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not
318 cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it
319 is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to put out its
320 faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always
321 crucify Christ and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and
322 pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels? One would think, that a
323 deliberate and practical denial of its authority was the only
324 offense never contemplated by its government; else, why has it
325 not assigned its definite, its suitable and proportionate,
326 penalty? If a man who has no property refuses but once to earn
327 nine shillings for the State, he is put in prison for a period
328 unlimited by any law that I know, and determined only by the
329 discretion of those who put him there; but if he should steal
330 ninety times nine shillings from the State, he is soon permitted
331 to go at large again.
332 If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the
333 machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will
334 wear smooth--certainly the machine will wear out. If the
335 injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank,
336 exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the
337 remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a
338 nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to
339 another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-
340 friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any
341 rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
342 As for adopting the ways of the State has provided for
343 remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much
344 time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other affairs to
345 attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a
346 good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A
347 man has not everything to do, but something; and because he
348 cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should be
349 petitioning the Governor or the Legislature any more than it is
350 theirs to petition me; and if they should not hear my petition,
351 what should I do then? But in this case the State has provided no
352 way: its very Constitution is the evil. This may seem to be harsh
353 and stubborn and unconcilliatory; but it is to treat with the
354 utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can
355 appreciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better, like
356 birth and death, which convulse the body.
357 I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves
358 Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support,
359 both in person and property, from the government of
360 Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority of
361 one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I
362 think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without
363 waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his
364 neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.
365 I meet this American government, or its representative, the
366 State government, directly, and face to face, once a year--no
367 more--in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in
368 which a man situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then
369 says distinctly, Recognize me; and the simplest, the most
370 effectual, and, in the present posture of affairs, the
371 indispensablest mode of treating with it on this head, of
372 expressing your little satisfaction with and love for it, is to
373 deny it then. My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very
374 man I have to deal with--for it is, after all, with men and not
375 with parchment that I quarrel--and he has voluntarily chosen to
376 be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well that
377 he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a man,
378 until he is obliged to consider whether he will treat me, his
379 neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-
380 disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see
381 if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborlines without
382 a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with
383 his action. I know this well, that if one thousand, if one
384 hundred, if ten men whom I could name--if ten honest men only--
385 ay, if one HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to
386 hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this co-partnership,
387 and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the
388 abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the
389 beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever.
390 But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our mission.
391 Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service, but not
392 one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the State's ambassador, who
393 will devote his days to the settlement of the question of human
394 rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being threatened with
395 the prisons of Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner of
396 Massachusetts, that State which is so anxious to foist the sin of
397 slavery upon her sister--though at present she can discover only
398 an act of inhospitality to be the ground of a quarrel with her--
399 the Legislature would not wholly waive the subject of the
400 following winter.
401 Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place
402 for a just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only
403 place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less
404 despondent spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked
405 out of the State by her own act, as they have already put
406 themselves out by their principles. It is there that the fugitive
407 slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to
408 plead the wrongs of his race should find them; on that separate
409 but more free and honorable ground, where the State places those
410 who are not with her, but against her--the only house in a slave
411 State in which a free man can abide with honor. If any think that
412 their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer
413 afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy
414 within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger
415 than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can
416 combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person.
417 Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole
418 influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the
419 majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible
420 when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep
421 all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State
422 will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to
423 pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and
424 bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State
425 to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the
426 definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If
427 the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one
428 has done, "But what shall I do?" my answer is, "If you really
429 wish to do anything, resign your office." When the subject has
430 refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned from office,
431 then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood shed
432 when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real
433 manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting
434 death. I see this blood flowing now. I have contemplated the
435 imprisonment of the offender, rather than the seizure of his
436 goods--though both will serve the same purpose--because they who
437 assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a
438 corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time in accumulating
439 property. To such the State renders comparatively small service,
440 and a slight tax is wont to appear exorbitant, particularly if
441 they are obliged to earn it by special labor with their hands. If
442 there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the
443 State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich
444 man--not to make any invidious comparison--is always sold to the
445 institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more
446 money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his
447 objects, and obtains them for him; it was certainly no great
448 virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he
449 would otherwise be taxed to answer; while the only new question
450 which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to spend it.
451 Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet. The
452 opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as that are
453 called the "means" are increased. The best thing a man can do for
454 his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those
455 schemes which he entertained when he was poor. Christ answered
456 the Herodians according to their condition. "Show me the tribute-
457 money," said he--and one took a penny out of his pocket--if you
458 use money which has the image of Caesar on it, and which he has
459 made current and valuable, that is, if you are men of the State,
460 and gladly enjoy the advantages of Caesar's government, then pay
461 him back some of his own when he demands it. "Render therefore to
462 Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God those things which are
463 God's"--leaving them no wiser than before as to which was which;
464 for they did not wish to know.
465 When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive
466 that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and seriousness
467 of the question, and their regard for the public tranquillity,
468 the long and the short of the matter is, that they cannot spare
469 the protection of the existing government, and they dread the
470 consequences to their property and families of disobedience to
471 it. For my own part, I should not like to think that I ever rely
472 on the protection of the State. But, if I deny the authority of
473 the State when it presents its tax bill, it will soon take and
474 waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without
475 end. This is hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live
476 honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects.
477 It will not be worth the while to accumulate property; that would
478 be sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise
479 but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within
480 yourself, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for
481 a start, and not have many affairs. A man may grow rich in Turkey
482 even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish
483 government. Confucius said: "If a state is governed by the
484 principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame;
485 if a state is not governed by the principles of reason, riches
486 and honors are subjects of shame." No: until I want the
487 protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant
488 Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent
489 solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I
490 can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right
491 to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur
492 the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I
493 should feel as if I were worth less in that case. Some years ago,
494 the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded me to pay
495 a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching
496 my father attended, but never I myself. "Pay," it said, "or be
497 locked up in the jail." I declined to pay. But, unfortunately,
498 another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the schoolmaster
499 should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the
500 schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I
501 supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the
502 lyceum should not present its tax bill, and have the State to
503 back its demand, as well as the Church. However, as the request
504 of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as
505 this in writing: "Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry
506 Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any society
507 which I have not joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he
508 has it. The State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be
509 regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand
510 on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original
511 presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should
512 then have signed off in detail from all the societies which I
513 never signed on to; but I did not know where to find such a
514 complete list.
515 I have paid no poll tax for six years. I was put into a jail
516 once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering
517 the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of
518 wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained
519 the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of
520 that institution which treated my as if I were mere flesh and
521 blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have
522 concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me
523 to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some
524 way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my
525 townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break
526 through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did nor
527 for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of
528 stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had
529 paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but
530 behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in
531 every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my
532 chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I
533 could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door
534 on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or
535 hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they
536 could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as
537 boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a
538 spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted,
539 that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and
540 that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my
541 remaining respect for it, and pitied it.
542 Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense,
543 intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not
544 armed with superior with or honesty, but with superior physical
545 strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my
546 own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a
547 multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than I.
548 They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men
549 being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort
550 of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to
551 me, "Your money our your life," why should I be in haste to give
552 it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to
553 do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is
554 not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not responsible for
555 the successful working of the machinery of society. I am not the
556 son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a
557 chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make
558 way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and
559 grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance,
560 overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live
561 according to nature, it dies; and so a man.
562 The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The
563 prisoners in their shirtsleeves were enjoying a chat and the
564 evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said,
565 "Come, boys, it is time to lock up"; and so they dispersed, and I
566 heard the sound of their steps returning into the hollow
567 apartments. My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer as "a
568 first-rate fellow and clever man." When the door was locked, he
569 showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there.
570 The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least,
571 was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably neatest
572 apartment in town. He naturally wanted to know where I came from,
573 and what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I asked him
574 in my turn how he came there, presuming him to be an honest an,
575 of course; and as the world goes, I believe he was. "Why," said
576 he, "they accuse me of burning a barn; but I never did it." As
577 near as I could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn
578 when drunk, and smoked his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt.
579 He had the reputation of being a clever man, had been there some
580 three months waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to
581 wait as much longer; but he was quite domesticated and contented,
582 since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was well
583 treated.
584 He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that if
585 one stayed there long, his principal business would be to look
586 out the window. I had soon read all the tracts that were left
587 there, and examined where former prisoners had broken out, and
588 where a grate had been sawed off, and heard the history of the
589 various occupants of that room; for I found that even there there
590 was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the
591 walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the town
592 where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a
593 circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list
594 of young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who
595 avenged themselves by singing them.
596 I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I
597 should never see him again; but at length he showed me which was
598 my bed, and left me to blow out the lamp. It was like travelling
599 into a far country, such as I had never expected to behold, to
600 lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I never had heard
601 the town clock strike before, not the evening sounds of the
602 village; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside
603 the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the
604 Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and
605 visions of knights and castles passed before me. They were the
606 voices of old burghers that I heard in the streets. I was an
607 involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said
608 in the kitchen of the adjacent village inn--a wholly new and rare
609 experience to me. It was a closer view of my native town. I was
610 fairly inside of it. I never had seen its institutions before.
611 This is one of its peculiar institutions; for it is a shire town.
612 I began to comprehend what its inhabitants were about.
613 In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole in
614 the door, in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and
615 holding a pint of chocolate, with brown bread, and an iron spoon.
616 When they called for the vessels again, I was green enough to
617 return what bread I had left, but my comrade seized it, and said
618 that I should lay that up for lunch or dinner. Soon after he was
619 let out to work at haying in a neighboring field, whither he went
620 every day, and would not be back till noon; so he bade me good
621 day, saying that he doubted if he should see me again. When I
622 came out of prison--for some one interfered, and paid that tax--I
623 did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the
624 common, such as he observed who went in a youth and emerged a
625 gray-headed man; and yet a change had come to my eyes come over
626 the scene--the town, and State, and country, greater than any
627 that mere time could effect. I saw yet more distinctly the State
628 in which I lived. I saw to what extent the people among whom I
629 lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their
630 friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly
631 propose to do right; that they were a distinct race from me by
632 their prejudices and superstitions, as the Chinamen and Malays
633 are that in their sacrifices to humanity they ran no risks, not
634 even to their property; that after all they were not so noble but
635 they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a
636 certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a
637 particular straight through useless path from time to time, to
638 save their souls. This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for
639 I believe that many of them are not aware that they have such an
640 institution as the jail in their village.
641 It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor
642 debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him,
643 looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent
644 the jail window, "How do ye do?" My neighbors did not this salute
645 me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as if I had
646 returned from a long journey. I was put into jail as I was going
647 to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mender. When I was let
648 out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and,
649 having put on my mended show, joined a huckleberry party, who
650 were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an
651 hour--for the horse was soon tackled--was in the midst of a
652 huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off,
653 and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
654 This is the whole history of "My Prisons."
655 I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am
656 as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad
657 subject; and as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to
658 educate my fellow countrymen now. It is for no particular item in
659 the tax bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse
660 allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it
661 effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I
662 could, till it buys a man a musket to shoot one with--the dollar
663 is innocent--but I am concerned to trace the effects of my
664 allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after
665 my fashion, though I will still make use and get what advantages
666 of her I can, as is usual in such cases.
667 If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a
668 sympathy with the State, they do but what they have already done
669 in their own case, or rather they abet injustice to a greater
670 extent than the State requires. If they pay the tax from a
671 mistaken interest in the individual taxed, to save his property,
672 or prevent his going to jail, it is because they have not
673 considered wisely how far they let their private feelings
674 interfere with the public good.
675 This, then is my position at present. But one cannot be too
676 much on his guard in such a case, lest his actions be biased by
677 obstinacy or an undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him see
678 that he does only what belongs to himself and to the hour.
679 I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are only
680 ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your
681 neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? But
682 I think again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or
683 permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind.
684 Again, I sometimes say to myself, When many millions of men,
685 without heat, without ill will, without personal feelings of any
686 kind, demand of you a few shillings only, without the
687 possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or
688 altering their present demand, and without the possibility, on
689 your side, of appeal to any other millions, why expose yourself
690 to this overwhelming brute force? You do not resist cold and
691 hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately; you quietly
692 submit to a thousand similar necessities. You do not put your
693 head into the fire. But just in proportion as I regard this as
694 not wholly a brute force, but partly a human force, and consider
695 that I have relations to those millions as to so many millions of
696 men, and not of mere brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal
697 is possible, first and instantaneously, from them to the Maker of
698 them, and, secondly, from them to themselves. But if I put my
699 head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to
700 the Maker for fire, and I have only myself to blame. If I could
701 convince myself that I have any right to be satisfied with men as
702 they are, and to treat them accordingly, and not according, in
703 some respects, to my requisitions and expectations of what they
704 and I ought to be, then, like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I
705 should endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are, and say
706 it is the will of God. And, above all, there is this difference
707 between resisting this and a purely brute or natural force, that
708 I can resist this with some effect; but I cannot expect, like
709 Orpheus, to change the nature of the rocks and trees and beasts.
710 I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not
711 wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up
712 as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an
713 excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready
714 to conform to them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on
715 this head; and each year, as the tax-gatherer comes round, I find
716 myself disposed to review the acts and position of the general
717 and State governments, and the spirit of the people to discover a
718 pretext for conformity.
719
720 "We must affect our country as our parents,
721 And if at any time we alienate
722 Out love or industry from doing it honor,
723 We must respect effects and teach the soul
724 Matter of conscience and religion,
725 And not desire of rule or benefit."
726
727 I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my
728 work of this sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better
729 patriot than my fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of
730 view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the
731 law and the courts are very respectable; even this State and this
732 American government are, in many respects, very admirable, and
733 rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have
734 described them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who
735 shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or
736 thinking of at all? However, the government does not concern me
737 much, and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It
738 is not many moments that I live under a government, even in this
739 world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free,
740 that which is not never for a long time appearing to be to him,
741 unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.
742 I know that most men think differently from myself; but
743 those whose lives are by profession devoted to the study of these
744 or kindred subjects content me as little as any. Statesmen and
745 legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never
746 distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society,
747 but have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a
748 certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented
749 ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank
750 them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not
751 very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not
752 governed by policy and expediency. Webster never goes behind
753 government, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His
754 words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no
755 essential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers,
756 and those who legislate for all tim, he never once glances at the
757 subject. I know of those whose serene and wise speculations on
758 this theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind's range and
759 hospitality. Yet, compared with the cheap professions of most
760 reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom an eloquence of
761 politicians in general, his are almost the only sensible and
762 valuable words, and we thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, he is
763 always strong, original, and, above all, practical. Still, his
764 quality is not wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer's truth is not
765 Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is
766 always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to
767 reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing. He well
768 deserves to be called, as he has been called, the Defender of the
769 Constitution. There are really no blows to be given him but
770 defensive ones. He is not a leader, but a follower. His leaders
771 are the men of '87. "I have never made an effort," he says, "and
772 never propose to make an effort; I have never countenanced an
773 effort, and never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb the
774 arrangement as originally made, by which various States came into
775 the Union." Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution
776 gives to slavery, he says, "Because it was part of the original
777 compact--let it stand." Notwithstanding his special acuteness and
778 ability, he is unable to take a fact out of its merely political
779 relations, and behold it as it lies absolutely to be disposed of
780 by the intellect--what, for instance, it behooves a man to do
781 here in American today with regard to slavery--but ventures, or
782 is driven, to make some such desperate answer to the following,
783 while professing to speak absolutely, and as a private man--from
784 which what new and singular of social duties might be inferred?
785 "The manner," says he, "in which the governments of the States
786 where slavery exists are to regulate it is for their own
787 consideration, under the responsibility to their constituents, to
788 the general laws of propriety, humanity, and justice, and to God.
789 Associations formed elsewhere, springing from a feeling of
790 humanity, or any other cause, have nothing whatever to do with
791 it. They have never received any encouragement from me and they
792 never will. [These extracts have been inserted since the lecture
793 was read -HDT]
794 They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced
795 up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible
796 and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and
797 humanity; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this
798 lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue
799 their pilgrimage toward its fountainhead.
800 No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in
801 America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are
802 orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the
803 speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of
804 settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence
805 for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or
806 any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned
807 the comparative value of free trade and of freed, of union, and
808 of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for
809 comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce
810 and manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to the
811 wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance,
812 uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual
813 complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank
814 among the nations. For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I
815 have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet
816 where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent
817 enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the
818 science of legislation.
819 The authority of government, even such as I am willing to
820 submit to--for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do
821 better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor
822 can do so well--is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it
823 must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have
824 no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to
825 it. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a
826 limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true
827 respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise
828 enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a
829 democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in
830 government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards
831 recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be
832 a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to
833 recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from
834 which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him
835 accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which
836 can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual
837 with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it
838 inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from
839 it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all
840 the duties of neighbors and fellow men. A State which bore this
841 kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened,
842 would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious
843 State, which I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.
844 =============================