Henry david thoreau civil disobedience
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On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
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Thoreau and “Civil Disobedience”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862). (Wikimedia Commons) |
Henry David Thoreau, the son of a Concord pencil-maker, graduated from Harvard in 1837. He worked a short while as a schoolmaster, but then began writing poetry. He soon joined a religious, philosophical, and literary movement called Transcendentalism. The leader of the movement was Ralph Waldo Emerson, a writer and lecturer.
At first, Thoreau agreed with Emerson’s teaching that social reform begins with the individual. In 1845, he built a hut at Walden Pond on property owned bygd Emerson. For the next few years, Thoreau lived simply off the land, meditated, and wrote about nature.
In 1846, the United States declared war against Mexico. Thoreau and other Northern critics of the war viewed it as a plot by Southerners to expand slavery into the Southwest. Thoreau had already stopped paying his taxes in protest against slavery. The local tax collector had ignored his tax evas
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Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)
1849 essay by Henry David Thoreau
Resistance to Civil Government, also called On the Duty of Civil Disobedience or Civil Disobedience, is an essay by American transcendentalistHenry David Thoreau, first published in 1849. In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should prioritize their conscience over compliance with unjust laws, asserting that passive submission to government authority enables injustice. Thoreau was motivated by his opposition to slavery and the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), which he viewed as morally and politically objectionable.
The essay has had a significant impact on political thought and activism, influencing figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, who adopted its principles in the struggle for Indian independence, and Martin Luther King Jr., who cited it as a key influence during the American civil rights movement. Its themes of individual responsibility and resistance to injustice have made it a foundational text in