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    On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
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    On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
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    On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
    Ebook32 pages33 minutes

    On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

    By Henry David Thoreau

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    About this ebook

    'Civil Disobedience' argues that citizens should not permit their government to overrule their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing their acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War, but the sentiments he expresses here are just as pertinent today as when they were first written. A true American classic.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilder Publications, Inc.
    Release dateOct 31, 2014
    ISBN9781633845169
    Author

    Henry David Thoreau

    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an American author and naturalist. A leading figure of Transcendentalism, he is best remembered for Walden, an account of the two years he spent living in a cabin on the north shore of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, and for Civil Disobedience, an essay that greatly influenced the abolitionist movement and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

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    Reviews for On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

    4/5

    283 ratings22 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A wonderful, thoughtful essay. Everyone should read this.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful, thoughtful essay. Everyone should read this.
    • 1/5
      Horse shit! Thoreau uses his opposition to slavery as a reason to pick and choose what laws and what taxes he's amenable to. He was just a cheap bastard who didn't want to pay taxes, who thought he knew better than anyone else. What a crock!
    • 1/5
      This was absolutely horrible. I don't know what I was expecting but the author was overblown and completely annoying.
    • 2/5
      Ugh, not the best for me to read, but that's me.
    • 5/5
      What can I say about this important work that has not been said before? Nothing. But I can give you what I got out of reading this essay. @Vasilly said 'Why don't you just write a blurb about the book?' when I complained to her I was having trouble getting started writing this review. However, once I started, I found I had a lot to say....Thoreau's Civil Disobedience came out of the movement known as Transcendentalism. If you don't know, or don't remember from school, American Transcendentalism grew out of a protest in New England of the culture and society that was prevalent in the mid 19th century. Transcendentalists believed that an ideal spiritual state was not the one made solely out of religious doctrine, but one that transcended into nature, intuition, and idealism. It also rejected the idea that knowledge can only be gained through experience and observation, but could also be obtained through spiritual awakening.Thoreau's Civil Disobedience challenges the status quo and dares Americans to stand up for what is right and do what is right, and NOT JUST TALK ABOUT IT. He challenges the idea of slavery, corruption, paying taxes, the Mexican-American war and he even challenges abolitionists to withdraw their support of the government. "Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it....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...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."If that is not a bold and powerful statement, I confess I don't know what is.Thoreau goes on to explain how he in different ways has put his money where his mouth is, so to speak. He shows he is no hypocrite. But he also shows he is not seeking a violent rebellion. In fact, he is opposed to unnecessary acts of aggression. As a country, we still have yet to embrace this message wholeheartedly.Thoreau also accuses people of taking positions for which they have no understanding or knowledge of the circumstances that arose around it. I certainly have this problem with people today and can understand his frustration. In my opinion, it is impossible to take a position politically, religiously, or otherwise, completely without question and with earnest, without actually knowing anything about the situation! Why do people do this? Do not take another person's position without understanding how they arrived at such a conclusion. Think for yourself! Do not let others think for you!Thoreau expresses his concern for this by comparing it to soldiers who must do what they are told, serving not as men but "as machines...marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences..."The mechanical way people react in this country is a problem that is just as real now as it was in the 1800s. While soldiers are trained to do as they are told as much for their safety as for their duty to the country, civilians act as if they are robots, blindly falling into line with everyone else because they are ignorant to what is really happening. (Note: I don't want anything taken the wrong way here. I am completely a supporter of soldiers and know that they must follow orders and die for their country and beliefs. I don't want anyone thinking I don't. My father, grandfather, uncle, and boyfriend have all served.)The worst part is when people choose to be ignorant over a situation. It is as Abraham Lincoln said, "The man who can read and doesn't has no advantage over the man who can't," I say that the person who can be informed and chooses to let someone else make decisions for them has no advantage over the person who has no choice. It is a waste of democracy and freedom. If you let politicians or neighbors tell you "their versions" of the information (or even news agencies) than you are allowing others to pick and choose which information they think is important for you to know about.It is hard to stay informed, no doubt. Especially in the internet age. There is always a breaking news story, a new op-ed piece, a new report, a new eyewitness account. But it is important that we know what we are or are not obeying. We need to know what we are and are not supporting. We need to know what we do and do not believe. This can't be done by taking in only bits and pieces of information or by using only one or two sources for information. Thoreau's Civil Disobedience is as much about encouraging others to perform their duties of freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and, of course, responsibility. Thoreau's essay is also about reaching your own individual conclusions about life through both the physical and the spiritual realms.I may have gone off on a tangent here (and my soapbox) but I think that just proves how immensely meaningful a read this is. If you have not read this essay, or it has been a while, like it has for me (read it in high school, but had completely different reaction this time), I recommend re-reading it. Even if you don't agree with Thoreau's points, it is an important read.
    • 4/5
      Thoreau's classic, Civil Disobedience, is a work that inspired Gandhi and MLK. In true transcendental fashion, Thoreau calls on the just individual to disobey unjust laws. It is not enough to simply disagree with a law, one must take action through passive resistance. Thoreau tells a personal anecdote of how he refused to pay the tax collector because that would mean he supported slavery and the Mexican American War. The result was a night in jail. Ironically, since Thoreau was basically living off the land at that time, the jail paid for his bed and food that night.I remember reading Thoreau's Walden in high school American Lit class. My friends and I got a big kick out it, dying to find out what Thoreau would say next. His ideas were very foreign to us.Now, as an adult, I can appreciate his works much more. It's fascinating to see the historical impact this one man had on future leaders and the American identity.
    • 3/5
      It was good to re-read. It dispelled some rumored happenings in the life of Thoreau (though, to be sure, he payed have been jailed multiple times for failure to pay his taxes), but brought back into my mind his abolitionist stand.I do not fully comprehend what he meant by improving government by refusing participation in it, but I suspect we are beyond that possibility now, in any case.
    • 5/5
      A subversives Manifesto that would be distributed offline and online. A dignifying treatise that Government is to WIN Legitamacy rather than force it's ideas on us regardless of cost. A Thesis of Justice and anarchism that if the Government is corrupt etc as too many are, to rise up and deprive them of their powers. An worthy contribution to the Egalitarian and Justice Philosophy canon.
    • 4/5
      "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."So concluded Henry David Thoreau in his seminal essay, "Civil Disobedience". Originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", it was later published as "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" because it was written in part as an answer to William Paley's "Of the Duty of Civil Obedience". This is somewhat confusing, however, since Thoreau makes it quite clear that he does NOT believe civil disobedience to be a duty, but rather thought it proper for people to be primarily concerned with the business of living: "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." He said only that one should resist when failure to do so brings harm to others: "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." (And even then he refrained from judging those who failed to resist out of, for example, fear of the consequences to their families.) (See Wendy McElroy's essay on "Civil Disobedience", particularly the penultimate section, "A duty to resist?").Really, the best way to review "Civil Disobedience" is to let Thoreau speak for himself. A few more key passages, starting with this early one expressing a clearly true, but rarely practiced, idea: "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 mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.... In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense.... Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.... 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.""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."Unfortunately, Thoreau is not always entirely consistent. He opens with the motto, "'That government is best which governs least'", and continues, "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." The second proposition, however, does *not* necessarily follow from the first (depending on how one interprets it). And when Thoreau goes on to differentiate himself from the "no-government men" of his day, it becomes hard to tell what exactly he is advocating. Is he an anarchist, or not? A sort of gradualist anarchist, or what? (And indeed, scholars have debated precisely this point for many decades.) Thoreau basically tells us what he is against, but he is much more vague about what he is *for*. He asserts that "Government is at best but an expedient," but never gives any argument for or content to this claim. This does not seem to be consistent with his conclusion with which I opened this review, and leaves us with little guidance as to what might be the *proper* functions of government, if any. So on the whole, "Civil Disobedience" is a very good essay, one might well say a *great* essay, but in some respects somewhat lacking or inconsistent.Also included in this collection are "Life Without Principle", "Slavery in Massachusetts", "A Plea for Captain John Brown", and "Walking". These essays are generally even more philosophically mixed than "Civil Disobedience" (in that he makes some poor arguments for unsound conclusions), but there is a lot of good material in them as well."Life Without Principle" is perhaps the most interesting of these, though ultimately a bit disappointing. It sounds like a piece on what might be called "practical philosophy", like he will explain the importance of principles AS SUCH in daily living; instead, it's more on the "practical" side than the "philosophical" side, as he just offers a number of principles by way of advice on how to live well. It is by and large good advice, though he clearly has little or no understanding of economics, which leads him into one or two blunders. He really doesn't have that much to say about the subject of the title that is deeply insightful."Slavery in Massachusetts" and "A Plea for Captain John Brown" are both passionate denunciations of slavery, and I certainly sympathize with Thoreau's sympathy for Brown, but there is more moral fervor here than practical solutions."Walking" is about a certain way of life that includes an appreciation for nature, very reminiscent of parts of Walden. Thematically, it doesn't have much to do with "Civil Disobedience", but if you liked Walden, you'll probably enjoy this.On the whole, these essays aren't perfect, but we can learn much of value from them...recommended reading.
    • 3/5
      some quotes i liked:"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 you 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." (page 8)"a government that pretends to be christian and crucifies a million christs every day!" (page 43)
    • 2/5
      I couldn't finish Walden and I couldn't finish all of these essays either. It's probably just me. I cannot get a grip on Thoreau's style or his politics and philosophy.
    • 4/5
      He has some wonderful essays, although it must be remembered that he had few personal responsibilities & no family to support. He was too self-centered for a wife & children. I believe he is sincere, if impractical. I think he draws the lines rather tight for the real world some times, but maybe it is that attitude that allowed things to go so wrong since his day...I've seen him labeled an Anarchist, but I believe he was a Libertarian. He wanted a better government that needed to govern less.
    • 4/5
      re-read after many years, still as insightful and inspiring as ever
    • 4/5
      This is more or less the core of libertarianism. A true classic.
    • 3/5
      “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.”

      Reading this is worth it, purely for some of the quotations alone. Startlingly relevant and a call to arms, Thoreau asks us to question what is legal (or written as law) vs. what is right, and if they are the same. If they're not, what can we do to change the legislation so that we are can align the law, and the government with our consciences.

      Of course, Thoreau was privileged, and his position, power and education allow him to ponder these issues -- in some cases, they are not his lived experience. And yet it was refreshing to see someone in this time and context protest war and protest slavery. "They were a product of their time" is an excuse I hear a lot, and it's a tired one.

      I found this really easy to read and while I didn't understand a lot of the finer points (this would be interesting to discuss in a classroom setting) I enjoyed it nonetheless.

    • 5/5
      Times change but the relevancy of this work has not.
    • 4/5
      This is a very interesting read. Though the language can seem a bit old and hard to get through and understand the message is important and rings out loud and clear. Many people are content to sit around and wait for the right thing to happen but in order for the right the to happen there must be action. If laws are unjust it is your duty to break those laws. So many people forget the actions of the founders of the US were treasonous. Sometime the only way to stand up for what is right is to work outside the law. It can be hard but it is always important to fight for what you think is right.
    • 4/5
      L'œuvre est intéressante et l'omniprésence de l'État est toujours une question dans nos société. Le texte n'est pas récent mais dans l'ensemble, la logique semble toujours tenir la route. Une lecture rapide qui peut éclairer un peu plus sur l'importance de mieux libérer l'être humain dans nos sociétés.
    • 4/5
      Indeholder "Forord", "Civil lydighedsnægtelse", "Breve til Harrison G. O. Blake"."Forord" er skrevet af Ebbe Kløvedal Reich og handler om Thoreau's filosofi og indflydelse på Gandhi og andre."Civil lydighedsnægtelse" handler om ???"Breve til Harrison G. O. Blake" handler om ???
    • 5/5
      Seminal essay on the crossroads of politics, philosophy, ethics and activism, to name a few. Not only was it influential on thought of Gandhi, MLK and the like, but it will remain forever relevant.
    • 5/5
      It's easy to see how influential this book been for so many. I admire Thoreau's iron will, the clarity of his conviction and the simplicity of his protest. It is a reminder of not too long ago of how much has changed in the world and our views of liberty with it.