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What Is Thoreau's Response To Resistance To Civil Government

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In his essay/ lecture “Resistance to Civil Government”, the author and philosopher Henry Thoreau argues that a man should not be forced by his own government to do anything that goes against his conscious or natural sense of morality. Likewise, he believes it is better for a man to disobey any law or ruling he deems unjust, and accept the consequences of his actions, rather than live with a mind weighted with guilt.Thoreau himself had experience with this situation, having spent a night in a local jail after refusing to pay his poll taxes, which would have helped to fund the illegal Mexican War. While reading this work, it becomes clear that Thoreau has identified and outlined a few things that he wishes for the reader to do. He encourages the reader to challenge unjust authority, disobey unjust laws, and lastly, seek to make change within the state. Firstly, Thoreau writes that to make a change in civil government, one must challenge the state on issues that are deemed to be unjust, prejudiced and unfair. In particular to the time in which this essay was written, the issue of slavery was at the height of debate. Thoreau himself was an abolitionist, and frequently campaigned and wrote for the cause, even though the practice of slavery was still legal and protected in …show more content…
“The government is best which governs the least” he writes. While reading Civil Disobedience, this sentiment is often reinforced by Thoreau's observations on the state of the American government in the early 1840s. According to him, government should focus more on the people of the country, and less on foreign wars and dictating diplomacy to foreign nations such as in the Mexican/ American War. Thoreau has written that a government does not provide or take care of one's family, but rather is a tool of security to help one to achieve such things. A government is necessary, he explains, but only to insure national peace and

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