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Title: Civil Disobedience
Author: Henry David Thoreau
Date: 1848
Language: en
Topics: civil disobedience, direct action, individualist, pacifist
Source: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience
Notes: This text is sometimes presented under the title On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Its original title is Resistance to Civil Government. Written by Henry David Thoreau in 1849, it is now in the public domain.

Henry David Thoreau

Civil Disobedience

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 corpse to the rampart we hurried;

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot

O’er the grave where our hero we buried.”

[Charles Wolfe The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna ]

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 there

is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but

they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and

wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as

well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.

They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as

these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others — as most

legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders — serve

the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral

distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending

it, as God. A very few — as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the

great sense, and men — serve the state with their consciences also, and

so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly

treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and

will not submit to be “clay,” and “stop a hole to keep the wind away,”

but leave that office to his dust at least:

“I am too high-born to be propertied,

To be a secondary at control,

Or useful serving-man and instrument

To any sovereign state throughout the world.”

[William Shakespeare King John]

He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them useless

and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a

benefactor and philanthropist.

How does it become a man to behave toward this American government

today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my

government which is the slave’s government also.

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse

allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its

inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is

not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution

Of ’75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it

taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most

probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without

them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough

good to counterbalance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make

a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and

oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a

machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a

nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and

a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and

subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest

men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is

the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the

invading army.

Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, in his chapter

on the “Duty of Submission to Civil Government,” resolves all civil

obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say that “so long as the

interest of the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the

established government cannot be resisted or changed without public

inconveniency, it is the will of God... that the established government

be obeyed — and no longer. This principle being admitted, the justice of

every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the

quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the

probability and expense of redressing it on the other.” Of this, he

says, every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears never to have

contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply,

in which a people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what

it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must

restore it to him though I drown myself. 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 any one think that

Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis?

“A drab of state, a cloth-o’-silver slut,

To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the dirt.”

[Cyril Tourneur The Revengers Tragadie ]

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, near at home, cooperate 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 materially wiser or

better than the many. It is not so important that many should be as 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 others to remedy the evil, that they may no

longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a

feeble countenance and God-speed, 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 his 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 reason 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, as my neighbor

says, has a bone in 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 this 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 for 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 the 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 differed 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

the 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 an 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 that 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 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 divides 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 be on the alert to

point 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 offence never contemplated by 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 placed 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 which 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 that he should do

something wrong. It is not my business to be petitioning the Governor or

the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they

should not bear 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 unconciliatory; 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 what he is and does as an

officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider

whether he shall 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 neighborliness

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 copartnership, 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 the following winter.

Under a government which imprisons any 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 desponding 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 his office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even

suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of 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; and 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 what 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 the 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, at 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

incorporated 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 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 me

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 was the best use it

could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in

some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my

townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through

before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment

feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I

felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did

not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In

every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they

thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone

wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the

door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or

hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could

not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they

cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse

his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a

lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends

from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied

it.

Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual

or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior

wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to

be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the

strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey a

higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not

hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What

sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to

me, “Your money or your life,” why should I be in haste to give it my

money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot

help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to

snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working of the

machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that,

when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain

inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and

spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance,

overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to

its nature, it dies; and so a man.

The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in

their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the

doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, “Come, boys, it is time to

lock up”; and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps

returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced to me

by the jailer as “a first-rate fellow and a clever man.” When the door

was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed

matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at

least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably the neatest

apartment in the town. He naturally wanted to know where I came from,

and what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I asked him in my

turn how he came there, presuming him to be an honest man, of course;

and, as the world goes, I believe he was. “Why,” said he, “they accuse

me of burning a barn; but I never did it.” As near as I could discover,

he had probably gone to bed in a barn when drunk, and smoked his pipe

there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of being a clever

man, had been there some three months waiting for his trial to come on,

and would have to wait as much longer; but he was quite domesticated and

contented, since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was

well treated.

He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that if one stayed

there long, his principal business would be to look out the window. I

had soon read all the tracts that were left there, and examined where

former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had been sawed off,

and heard the history of the various occupants of that room; for I found

that even here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated

beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the

town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a

circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of

verses which were composed by some young men who had been detected in an

attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them.

I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should never

see him again; but at length he showed me which was my bed, and left me

to blow out the lamp.

It was like travelling into a far country, such as I had never expected

to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I never had

heard the town clock strike before, nor the evening sounds of the

village; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside the

grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the Middle

Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of

knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices of old

burghers that I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spectator and

auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent

village inn — a wholly new and rare experience to me. It was a closer

view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I never had seen its

institutions before. This is one of its peculiar institutions; for it is

a shire town. I began to comprehend what its inhabitants were about.

In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole in the door, in

small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and holding a pint of

chocolate, with brown bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for the

vessels again, I was green enough to return what bread I had left; but

my comrade seized it, and said that I should lay that up for lunch or

dinner. Soon after he was let out to work at haying in a neighboring

field, whither he went every day, and would not be back till noon; so he

bade me good-day, saying that he doubted if he should see me again.

When I came out of prison — for some one interfered, and paid that tax —

I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the common,

such as he observed who went in a youth and emerged a tottering and

gray-headed man; and yet a change had to my eyes come over the scene —

the town, and State, and country — greater than any that mere time could

effect. I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived. I saw to

what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good

neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather

only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; that they were a

distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions, as the

Chinamen and Malays are; that in their sacrifices to humanity they ran

no risks, not even to their property; that after all they were not so

noble but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a

certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a

particular straight though useless path from time to time, to save their

souls. This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe that

many of them are not aware that they have such an institution as the

jail in their village.

It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out

of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their

fingers, which were crossed to represent the grating of a jail window,

“How do ye do?” My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at

me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I

was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe which

was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish

my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry

party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in

half an hour — for the horse was soon tackled — was in the midst of a

huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then

the State was nowhere to be seen.

This is the whole history of “My Prisons.”

I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous

of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and as for

supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen

now. It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay

it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and

stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my

dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot one with —

the dollar is innocent — but I am concerned to trace the effects of my

allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after my

fashion, though I will still make what use and get what advantage of her

I can, as is usual in such cases.

If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the

State, they do but what they have already done in their own case, or

rather they abet injustice to a greater extent than the State requires.

If they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the individual taxed, to

save his property, or prevent his going to jail, it is because they have

not considered wisely how far they let their private feelings interfere

with the public good.

This, then, is my position at present. But one cannot be too much on his

guard in such a case, lest his action be biased by obstinacy or an undue

regard for the opinions of men. Let him see that he does only what

belongs to himself and to the hour.

I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are only ignorant;

they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain

to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think again, This is no

reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much

greater pain of a different kind. Again, I sometimes say to myself, When

many millions of men, without heat, without ill will, without personal

feeling of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only, without the

possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their

present demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to

any other millions, why expose yourself to this 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

of 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

Our 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.”

[George Peele Battle of Alcazar ]

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 a 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; but seen from a point of view a little

higher, they are what I 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 time, 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 and 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 by 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 the various States

came into the Union.” Still thinking of the sanction which the

Constitution gives to slavery, he says, “Because it was a 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 America

today with regard to slavery — but ventures, or is driven, to make some

such desperate answer as the following, while professing to speak

absolutely, and as a private man — from which what new and singular code

of social duties might be inferred? “The manner,” says he, “in which the

governments of those States where slavery exists are to regulate it is

for their own consideration, under their 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.”

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 humility; 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

fountain-head.

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

it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not

yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of freedom, 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 least 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

also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.