Conscience and the law
Examine how the essay moves from one night in jail to an argument about complicity, majority rule and the duties of citizens toward an unjust state.
An original introduction. This guide accompanies the work; it is neither the complete text nor a translation.
Situating the text
First delivered as a lecture at the Concord Lyceum in 1848 and printed in 1849 as Resistance to Civil Government, the essay received the title Civil Disobedience in a posthumous collection of 1866. It grew out of his night in jail in July 1846, during the war against Mexico. Thoreau argues that individuals must not surrender their conscience to majority rule or to the state. When a government upholds slavery and wages an unjust war, a just person should withdraw support, refuse the taxes that sustain injustice and accept the consequences openly.
Following the arguments
Conscience first : People should be human beings first and subjects afterwards; law deserves respect only insofar as it is just. Complicity : Paying taxes or serving the state can make ordinary citizens agents of the injustice they condemn in words. Minority action : A minority that withholds its whole weight can obstruct the machine of government more than votes or petitions.
Continuing the reading
Read the essay alongside the 1854 speech Slavery in Massachusetts and the 1859 plea for John Brown, so as not to reduce Thoreau to a doctrine of nonviolence. First delivered as a lecture at the Concord Lyceum in 1848 and printed in 1849 as Resistance to Civil Government, the essay received the title Civil Disobedience in a posthumous collection of 1866. It grew out of his night in jail in July 1846, during the war against Mexico.
Refusal becomes political when it is public, principled and borne in person by the one who refuses.
Your turn to think.
- When does obeying a law make a person complicit in an injustice?
- Why does Thoreau insist on accepting the penalty openly instead of evading it?
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