CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Henry David Thoreau

Navleen Multani
 Henry David Thoreau
1817-1862
 Concord, Massachusetts
 American Essayist and Philosopher
 Naturalist, Transcendentalist
 Father, John Thoreau, pencil maker;
Mother, Cynthia
 Friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson
 LIFE
 Loner
 Not popular among peers
 Pursuits : teaching, working in his
father’s pencil factory, tutoring
Emerson’s and others children
 Solitary life in cabin near Walden Pond
for two years, 1845-47
 WORKS
( Books, Lectures and Essays)
 Walden , or Life in Woods (1854)
 Resistance to Civil Government or Civil
Disobedience (1849)
 Slavery in Massachusetts (1854)
 A Plea for Captain Brown (1859)
 Excursions (1863)
 Life Without Principle (1863)
 IDEAS AND CONCEPTS
 Individualism
 Idealism and Simple Living
 Divinity of Nature
 Passive Resistance
 Abolitionism
 Anti-War; Poll tax
 Duty of Disobedience
 Righteousness, Power of Minority and Morality/Ethics
 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
 Resistance to Civil Government
 On Duty of Disobedience
 Legitimacy of Peaceful Protest
 Rights and responsibilities of individual
 Change unjust laws and wrong policies of
government
 Human Conscience and Moral Sense
 Lecture Series at the Lyceum in Concord,
Massachusetts in 1848, ‘The Rights and
Duties of the Individual in Relation to
Government’
 Resistance to unjust laws , taxes and illegal
war of aggression to extend slavery –
Mexican War (1846-48)
 Imprisonment for non-payment of tax
 Background / Context
 Transcendentalism : Idealism,
individualism, Expression of freedom,
Spiritual state, Introspection, outcry
against materialism of 19th century,
reconnecting with Nature, transcend
physical and empirical state, respect
individual spirit and reject unethical,
immoral practices and unjust laws of
established institutions
 Manifest Destiny : Cultural belief and Westward
expansion, God had ordained White European
Supremacy to reign over North American continent
 The Mexican War (1846-48) : Southerners looking for
new land to grow cotton wanted to annex Mexico and
divide into several slave states
 The Fugitive Slave Law : The Fugitive Slave Act 1850
authorized local governments to seize and return
slave escapees to their owners and imposed penalty
on anyone who aided them to flee
 Civil Disobedience
 Political Philosophy: Ideals for structuring government
and society
 Nature of Democracy : Majority votes for benefit ;
Obedience to immoral laws lead people to unjust
practices
 Relationship between citizen’s and government
:Individual’s duty to follow conscience, duty of
disobedience to immoral and unjust laws
 Reforms: Individualism, Intellect, Self-Reliance, Dissent
 Individual’s response to injustice
 Importance of morality, conscience and
independent voting
 Dissociate from wrong policies of government,
not to participate in evil
 Majority can be wrong; Minority can be right
 Lack of intellect, self-reliance and sense of
complacency are obstacles in the way of reform
 Personal Experiences
 Non-payment of taxes (bad; raised to wage
unjust and brutal wars, enslave human
beings)
 State punishes body for non-payment of
taxes and resistance to unjust laws
 Significance of non-conformity and pacifism
 Main Concerns
 Majority oppressing minority in democracy
 Immoral, Unjust, Inhuman laws
 Transgression of unjust laws and duty of disobedience
can check injustice
 Peaceful method of protest and resistance
 Fear of punishment and loss of employment are the
greatest impediments
 Self-Reliance, Simple living, Transcendentalism, Voting
wisely, Following Conscience and Higher Law
Thoreau’s Concept of State
 State is not an end but the means to some other
purpose.
 State is not an absolute necessity; cannot have
‘right over my person and property’
 State is a mechanism or mode by which people
have chosen to execute their will
 State has no power or authority, citizens grant
authority to the State for accomplishment of
rightful purpose
 State cannot act in a manner that hinders
accomplishment of rightful purpose as it
would become ‘inexpedient’ and contradict
its existence
 The inexpedient State, by acting contrary to
the purpose for which citizens agreed to
accept its authority, forfeits its claim to the
allegiance of citizens who might then
legitimately refuse to obey
 Right to Resist
 Thoreau regards the right to refuse allegiance
to tyrannical and inefficient government as
correct
 Individual retains the right to separate himself
from a State that contradicts rightful purpose
 Expediency for Thoreau is choosing that
course which offers slightest obstacle and the
ideal principle for civil government
 Progressive Evolution
 Absolute to limited Monarchy
 Limited Monarchy to Democracy:
Respect for individual
 State’s continuous progression is an
attempt to achieve the terminus,
rightful purpose accomplishment –
re/organising rights of man
 State exists to protect individual’s freedom – live
without interference
 The best government, ‘which governs not at all,’ is not
a government that does nothing but is the one which
does not coerce citizens; guarantees economic freedom
by protecting the means with which men support
themselves independently and honestly
 Ideal State enables individuals to be free, self-sufficient
and live according to the precepts of divine moral law
 The character of mankind slowly evolves with
education and appropriate socio-economic
conditions
 As men gain moral perfection and act with
responsibility, State should evolve with being less
restrictive
 External Government can be replaced by each
individual’s self-government
 State must respect ‘higher law’
 Government which enacts laws that conflict with the
‘Higher Law’ not only exceeds its rightful powers but
also contributes to moral degeneration of its citizens
 Government, majority rule, that puts forth its
strength on the side of slavery and injustice has no
right to compel citizens to cooperate in an immoral
act misuses its power and violates human rights
 Individual must preserve integrity and conscience;
refuse to obey immoral laws, disobey the State for the
betterment of humanity
Simple Living
and
High Thinking
matters …
 ‘Every man is the builder of a temple,
called his body, to the god he worships,
after a style purely his own, nor can he get
by hammering marble instead. We are all
sculptors and painters, and our material is
our own flesh and blood and bones. Any
nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s
features, any meanness or sensuality to
imbrute them’ Thoreau Walden