He urges people to be free from the corrupting powers of money and property. It constitutes “peaceable revolution.” Thoreau also advocates a simple and self-reliant lifestyle to achieve individual freedom. With his own example, he establishes that non-payment of taxes is a means to withdraw support from the government. He recalls the time when he was imprisoned for non-payment of taxes on his part. ► To establish this thought further, he gives his own example. An individual must act with principle and break the law if necessary. Thoreau asserts that an individual must not support the government structure. He believes that mere expression of objection is not enough it requires action. He encourages people be a counter friction or a resistance to stop such a machine. Instead, it might produce injustice only. As a machine, the government may not do a good job in producing justice. To establish this thought, he compares the government with a machine. ► Thoreau introduces common people’s right to revolution against an unjust government. According to Thoreau, a person cannot accept the government’s authority unquestioningly.
He believed that if the government fails to improve, people should not support it. He did not believe that there should be no government at all. ► However, Thoreau makes it clear that he is against abolishing the government, but wished for a better one. He asserts that the government itself becomes an obstacle between achieving its purpose, the purpose for which it was created. Thoreau gives examples of slavery practice and the Mexican-American war to establish his point further.
It exists to ensure an individual’s freedom. According to Thoreau, it is in existence to execute citizens’ will.
The government is chosen by people to achieve certain ends. He speaks favorably about a government that does not intrude in citizens’ lives. ► Thoreau opens his essay with a saying “That government is best which governs least,” which he believes to be true. It also condemns the Mexican-American war. The essay primary deals with slavery crisis in America in the 1840s and 1850s. The essay appears under titles On the Duty of Civil Disobedience and On Civil Disobedience as well. The essay was printed with a new title called Civil Disobedience. The essay was reprinted in 1866, four years after Thoreau’s death, in the collection of his work named A Yankee in Canada: With Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers.
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