Civil

Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau

1849

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Contents

Part One .......................................................................3

Part Two......................................................................10
Part Three...................................................................18

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Part One

I heartily accept the motto, — “That government is best which

governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more
rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to
this, which also I believe, — “That government is best which
governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will
be the kind of government which they will have. Government is
at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and
all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections
which have been brought against a standing army, and they are
many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be
brought against a standing government. The standing army is
only an arm of the standing government. The government itself,
which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute
their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the
people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the
work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing
government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would
not have consented to this measure.
This American government — what is it but a tradition,
though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired
to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has
not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man
can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people
themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the peo-
ple must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear
its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Gov-
ernments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on,
even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excel-
lent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of itself fur-
thered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out
of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle
the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the

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American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it
would have done somewhat more, if the government had not
sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient by
which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and,
as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are
most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made
of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obsta-
cles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and,
if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their
actions, and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to
be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who
put obstructions on the railroads.
But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who
call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no
government, but at once a better government. Let every man
make known what kind of government would command his re-
spect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in
the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long
period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be
in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but
because they are physically the strongest. But a government in
which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice,
even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a govern-
ment in which majorities do not virtually decide right and
wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those
questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must
the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his
conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience,
then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects after-
ward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so
much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right
to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly
enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corpora-
tion of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.
Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their
respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents
of injustice.  A common and natural result of an undue respect
for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain,
corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admi-
rable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay,

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against their common sense and consciences, which makes it
very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the
heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in
which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now,
what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and maga-
zines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit
the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an Ameri-
can government can make, or such as it can make a man with
its black arts — a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a
man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say,
buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, though it may
be

“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.”

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but
as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and
the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases
there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the
moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and
earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufac-
tured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no
more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have
the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as
these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as
most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-
holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they
rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve
the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes,
patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve
the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it
for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by
it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit
to be “clay,” and “stop a hole to keep the wind away,” but leave
that office to his dust at least: —

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 “I am too high-born to be propertied,
To be a secondary at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world.”

He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to

them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to
them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.
How does it become a man to behave toward this American
government to-day? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace
be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that po-
litical organization as my government which is the slave’s gov-
ernment also.
All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to
refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyr-
anny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.  But almost
all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they
think, in the Revolution of ’75. If one were to tell me that this
was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign com-
modities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should
not make an ado about it, for I can do without them. All ma-
chines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to
counterbalance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a
stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine,
and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have
such a machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the
population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of
liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and
conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I
think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolu-
tionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that
the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading
army.
Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, in
his chapter on the “Duty of Submission to Civil Government,”
resolves all civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to
say that “so long as the interest of the whole society requires it,
that is, so long as the established government cannot be resisted
or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will of God
that the established government be obeyed, and no longer” —
“This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular

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case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of
the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability
and expense of redressing it on the other.” Of this, he says,
every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears never to
have contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency
does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must
do justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank
from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown
myself.This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient. But he
that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it. This people
must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it
cost them their existence as a people.
In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does any one
think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the pre-
sent crisis?

“A drab of state, a cloth-o’-silver slut,

To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the
dirt.”

Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachu-

setts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a
hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more
interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in human-
ity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mex-
ico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with
those who, near at home, co-operate with, and do the bidding of
those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless.
We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared;
but improvement is slow, because the few are not materially
wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that many
should be as good as you, as that there be some absolute good-
ness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. There are
thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war,
who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, es-
teeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit
down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know
not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question
of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the
prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after
dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the

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price-current of an honest man and patriot to-day? They hesi-
tate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do
nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well dis-
posed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer
have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a
feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by
them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue
to one virtuous man; but it is easier to deal with the real posses-
sor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon,
with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong,
with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The
character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance,
as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right
should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obliga-
tion, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting
for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men
feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not
leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail
through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in
the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length
vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indif-
ferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be
abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only
his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own
freedom by his vote.
I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere,
for the selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up
chiefly of editors, and men who are politicians by profession; but
I think, what is it to any independent, intelligent, and respect-
able man what decision they may come to? Shall we not have
the advantage of his wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we
not count upon some independent votes? Are there not many
individuals in the country who do not attend conventions? But
no: I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately
drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his
country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts
one of the candidates thus selected as the only available one,
thus proving that he is himself available for any purposes of the
demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any un-
principled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been

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bought. Oh for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says,
has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand
through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been re-
turned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand
miles in this country? Hardly one.  Does not America offer any
inducement for men to settle here? The American has dwindled
into an Odd Fellow — one who may be known by the develop-
ment of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of in-
tellect and cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern,
on coming into the world, is to see that the almshouses are in
good repair; and, before yet he has lawfully donned the virile
garb, to collect a fund for the support of the widows and or-
phans that may be; who, in short ventures to live only by the aid
of the Mutual Insurance company, which has promised to bury
him decently.
It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote him-
self to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong;
he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it
is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no
thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote
myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at
least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s
shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his con-
templations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have
heard some of my townsmen say, “I should like to have them
order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or
to march to Mexico; — see if I would go”; and yet these very
men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at
least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is ap-
plauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do
not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the
war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he dis-
regards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that
degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to
that degree that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, under
the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made at
last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. After the
first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it
becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that
life which we have made.

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Part Two

The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most

disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which
the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most
likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove of the
character and measures of a government, yield to it their
allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious
supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to
reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to
disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not
dissolve it themselves — the union between themselves and the
State — and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not
they stand in the same relation to the State, that the State does
to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the
State from resisting the Union, which have prevented them from
resisting the State?
How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely,
and enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that
he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your
neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are
cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with peti-
tioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at
once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never
cheated again. Action from principle — the perception and the
performance of right — changes things and relations; it is essen-
tially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything
which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides
families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in
him from the divine.
Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall
we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have suc-
ceeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally,
under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait

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until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think
that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the
evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy
is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt
to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its
wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why
does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out
its faults, and do better than it would have them?  Why does it
always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Lu-
ther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?
One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its
authority was the only offence never contemplated by govern-
ment; else, why has it not assigned its definite, its suitable and
proportionate, penalty? If a man who has no property refuses
but once to earn nine shillings for the State, he is put in prison
for a period unlimited by any law that I know, and determined
only by the discretion of those who placed him there; but if he
should steal ninety times nine shillings from the State, he is
soon permitted to go at large again.
If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the ma-
chine of government, let it go, let it go; perchance it will wear
smooth — certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice
has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for
itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will
not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it
requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say,
break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the ma-
chine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend
myself to the wrong which I condemn.
As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for
remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too
much time, and a man’s life will be gone. I have other affairs to
attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good
place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has
not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do
everything, it is not necessary that he should do something
wrong. It is not my business to be petitioning the Governor or
the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if
they should not hear my petition, what should I do then? But in
this case the State has provided no way; its very Constitution is
the evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and uncon-

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ciliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and consid-
eration the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it. So is an
change for the better, like birth and death which convulse the
body.
I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Aboli-
tionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both
in person and property, from the government of Massachusetts,
and not wait till they constitute a majority of one, before they
suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is
enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that
other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors
constitutes a majority of one already.
I meet this American government, or its representative, the
State government, directly, and face to face, once a year — no
more — in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in
which a man situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then
says distinctly, Recognize me; and the simplest, the most effec-
tual, and, in the present posture of affairs, the indispensablest
mode of treating with it on this head, of expressing your little
satisfaction with and love for it, is to deny it then. My civil
neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with —
for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment that I quar-
rel — and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the gov-
ernment. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as
an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to
consider whether he shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he
has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac
and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this ob-
struction to his neighborliness without a ruder and more im-
petuous thought or speech corresponding with his action? I
know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men
whom I could name — if ten honest men only — ay, if one
HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold
slaves, were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and
be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition
of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the begin-
ning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever.
But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our
mission. Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service,
but not one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the State’s ambassa-
dor, who will devote his days to the settlement of the question of

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human rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being threat-
ened with the prisons of Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner
of Massachusetts, that State which is so anxious to foist the sin
of slavery upon her sister — though at present she can discover
only an act of inhospitality to be the ground of a quarrel with
her — the Legislature would not wholly waive the subject the
following winter.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true
place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place to-day, the
only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and
less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and
locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put
themselves out by their principles. It is there that the fugitive
slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come
to plead the wrongs of his race, should find them; on that sepa-
rate, but more free and honorable ground, where the State
places those who are not with her, but against her — the only
house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.
If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their
voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not
be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much
truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and
effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little
in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper
merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while
it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it
is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative
is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the
State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were
not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent
and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the
State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in
fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is pos-
sible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as
one has done, “But what shall I do?” my answer is, “If you
really wish to do anything, resign your office.” When the subject
has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office,
then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood
should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the con-
science is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real manhood

13
and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death.
I see this blood flowing now.
I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender,
rather than the seizure of his goods — though both will serve the
same purpose — because they who assert the purest right, and
consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly
have not spent much time in accumulating property. To such the
State renders comparatively small service, and a slight tax is
wont to appear exorbitant, particularly if they are obliged to
earn it by special labor with their hands. If there were one who
lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would
hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man — not to make
any invidious comparison — is always sold to the institution
which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money,
the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects,
and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue
to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he would oth-
erwise be taxed to answer; while the only new question which it
puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his
moral ground is taken from under his feet. The opportunities of
living are diminished in proportion as what are called the
“means” are increased. The best thing a man can do for his cul-
ture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes
which he entertained when he was poor. Christ answered the
Herodians according to their condition.  “Show me the tribute-
money,” said he; — and one took a penny out of his pocket; — if
you use money which has the image of Cæsar on it, and which
he has made current and valuable, that is, if you are men of the
State, and gladly enjoy the advantages of Cæsar’s government,
then pay him back some of his own when he demands it; “Ren-
der therefore to Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s, and to God those
things which are God’s” — leaving them no wiser than before as
to which was which; for they did not wish to know.
When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive
that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and serious-
ness of the question, and their regard for the public tranquillity,
the long and the short of the matter is, that they cannot spare
the protection of the existing government, and they dread the
consequences to their property and families of disobedience to
it. For my own part, I should not like to think that I ever rely on
the protection of the State. But, if I deny the authority of the

14
State when it presents its tax-bill, it will soon take and waste all
my property, and so harass me and my children without end.
This is hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live honestly,
and at the same time comfortably in outward respects. It will
not be worth the while to accumulate property; that would be
sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise
but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within your-
self, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for a
start, and not have many affairs. A man may grow rich in Tur-
key even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turk-
ish government.  Confucius said, “If a state is governed by the
principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame;
if a state is not governed by the principles of reason, riches and
honors are the subjects of shame.” No: until I want the protec-
tion of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant
Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am
bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enter-
prise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her
right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to
incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to
obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.
Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church,
and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of
a clergyman whose preaching my father attended, but never I
myself. “Pay,” it said, “or be locked up in the jail.” I declined to
pay. But, unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not
see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest,
and not the priest the schoolmaster: for I was not the State’s
schoolmaster, but I supported myself by voluntary subscription. 
I did not see why the lyceum should not present its tax-bill, and
have the State to back its demand, as well as the Church. How-
ever, at the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make
some such statement as this in writing: — “Know all men by
these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be re-
garded as a member of any incorporated society which I have
not joined.” This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it. The
State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded as
a member of that church, has never made a like demand on me
since; though it said that it must adhere to its original presump-
tion that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then

15
have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never
signed on to; but I did not know where to find a complete list.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once
on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the
walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood
and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the
light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that
institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood
and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have con-
cluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to,
and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way.
I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my
townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break
through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not
for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste
of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had
paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but
behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in
every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my
chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I
could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the
door on my meditations, which followed them out again without
let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As
they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body;
just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom
they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was
half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver
spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I
lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.
Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense,
intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not
armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical
strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my
own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a
multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than
I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of
men being forced to have this way or that by masses of men.
What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government
which says to me, “Your money or your life,” why should I be in
haste to give it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not
know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I

16
do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not respon-
sible for the successful working of the machinery of society. I am
not the son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and
a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to
make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and
spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, per-
chance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot
live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.

17
Part Three

The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The

prisoners in their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the
evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said,
“Come, boys, it is time to lock up”; and so they dispersed, and I
heard the sound of their steps returning into the hollow
apartments. My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer
as “a first-rate fellow and a clever man.” When the door was
locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he
managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a
month; and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply
furnished, and probably the neatest apartment in the town. He
naturally wanted to know where I came from, and what brought
me there; and, when I had told him, I asked him in my turn
how he came there, presuming him to be an honest man, of
course; and, as the world goes, I believe he was. “Why,” said he,
“they accuse me of burning a barn; but I never did it.” As near
as I could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn when
drunk, and smoked his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He
had the reputation of being a clever man, had been there some
three months waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to
wait as much longer; but he was quite domesticated and
contented, since he got his board for nothing, and thought that
he was well treated.
He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that if
one stayed there long, his principal business would be to look
out the window. I had soon read all the tracts that were left
there, and examined where former prisoners had broken out,
and where a grate had been sawed off, and heard the history of
the various occupants of that room; for I found that even here
there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond
the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the town
where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a

18
circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of
verses which were composed by some young men who had been
detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by
singing them.
I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I
should never see him again; but at length he showed me which
was my bed, and left me to blow out the lamp.
It was like travelling into a far country, such as I had never
expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me
that I never had heard the town-clock strike before, nor the eve-
ning sounds of the village; for we slept with the windows open,
which were inside the grating. It was to see my native village in
the light of the Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a
Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles passed before
me. They were the voices of old burghers that I heard in the
streets. I was an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever
was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village-inn — a
wholly new and rare experience to me. It was a closer view of
my native town.  I was fairly inside of it. I never had seen its
institutions before. This is one of its peculiar institutions; for it
is a shire town. I began to comprehend what its inhabitants
were about.
In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole in
the door, in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and hold-
ing a pint of chocolate, with brown bread, and an iron spoon.
When they called for the vessels again, I was green enough to
return what bread I had left; but my comrade seized it, and said
that I should lay that up for lunch or dinner. Soon after he was
let out to work at haying in a neighboring field, whither he
went every day, and would not be back till noon; so he bade me
good-day, saying that he doubted if he should see me again.
When I came out of prison — for some one interfered, and
paid that tax — I did not perceive that great changes had taken
place on the common, such as he observed who went in a youth
and emerged a tottering and gray-headed man; and yet a change
had to my eyes come over the scene — the town, and State, and
country — greater than any that mere time could effect. I saw
yet more distinctly the State in which I lived. I saw to what ex-
tent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good
neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer
weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; that

19
they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and super-
stitions, as the Chinamen and Malays are; that in their sacrifices
to humanity, they ran no risks, not even to their property; that
after all they were not so noble but they treated the thief as he
had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance
and a few prayers, and by walking in a particular straight
though useless path from time to time, to save their souls. This
may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe that many of
them are not aware that they have such an institution as the jail
in their village.
It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor
debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, look-
ing through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the
grating of a jail window, “How do ye do?” My neighbors did not
thus salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one another,
as if I had returned from a long journey. I was put into jail as I
was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe which was mended.
When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my
errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckle-
berry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my
conduct; and in half an hour — for the horse was soon tackled —
was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest
hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
This is the whole history of “My Prisons.”
I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am
as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad sub-
ject; and as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to edu-
cate my fellow-countrymen now. It is for no particular item in
the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse alle-
giance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectu-
ally. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till
it buys a man or a musket to shoot one with — the dollar is in-
nocent — but I am concerned to trace the effects of my alle-
giance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after my
fashion, though I will still make what use and get what advan-
tage of her I can, as is usual in such cases.
If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sym-
pathy with the State, they do but what they have already done
in their own case, or rather they abet injustice to a greater ex-
tent than the State requires. If they pay the tax from a mistaken
interest in the individual taxed, to save his property, or prevent

20
his going to jail, it is because they have not considered wisely
how far they let their private feelings interfere with the public
good.
This, then, is my position at present. But one cannot be too
much on his guard in such a case, lest his action be biased by
obstinacy or an undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him
see that he does only what belongs to himself and to the hour.
I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well; they are only
ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your
neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? But
I think, again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or
permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind.
Again, I sometimes say to myself, When many millions of men,
without heat, without ill-will, without personal feeling of any
kind, demand of you a few shillings only, without the possibility,
such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their present
demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to
any other millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming
brute force? You do not resist cold and hunger, the winds and
the waves, thus obstinately; you quietly submit to a thousand
similar necessities. You do not put your head into the fire. But
just in proportion as I regard this as not wholly a brute force,
but partly a human force, and consider that I have relations to
those millions as to so many millions of men, and not of mere
brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal is possible, first and
instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them, and, sec-
ondly, from them to themselves. But, if I put my head deliber-
ately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to the Maker of
fire, and I have only myself to blame. If I could convince myself
that I have any right to be satisfied with men as they are, and to
treat them accordingly, and not according, in some respects, to
my requisitions and expectations of what they and I ought to be,
then, like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should endeavor to
be satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the will of
God.  And, above all, there is this difference between resisting
this and a purely brute or natural force, that I can resist this
with some effect; but I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change
the nature of the rocks and trees and beasts.
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not
wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as
better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an ex-

21
cuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready
to conform to them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on
this head; and each year, as the tax-gatherer comes round, I find
myself disposed to review the acts and position of the general
and State governments, and the spirit of the people, to discover
a pretext for conformity.

“We must affect our country as our parents,

And if at any time we alienate
Our love or industry from doing it honor,
We must respect effects and teach the soul
Matter of conscience and religion,
And not desire of rule or benefit.”

I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my work
of this sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better a pa-
triot than my fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of
view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law
and the courts are very respectable; even this State and this
American government are, in many respects, very admirable
and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have
described them; but seen from a point of view a little higher,
they are what I have described them; seen from a higher still,
and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are
worth looking at or thinking of at all?
However, the government does not concern me much, and I
shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many
moments that I live under a government, even in this world. If a
man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is
not never for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers
or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.
I know that most men think differently from myself; but
those whose lives are by profession devoted to the study of these
or kindred subjects, content me as little as any. Statesmen and
legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never
distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society,
but have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a cer-
tain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented
ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank
them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very
wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not gov-

22
erned by policy and expediency. Webster never goes behind gov-
ernment, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His
words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no es-
sential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers, and
those who legislate for all time, he never once glances at the
subject. I know of those whose serene and wise speculations on
this theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind’s range and
hospitality. Yet, compared with the cheap professions of most
reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom and eloquence of politi-
cians in general, his are almost the only sensible and valuable
words, and we thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, he is al-
ways strong, original, and, above all, practical. Still, his quality
is not wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer’s truth is not truth,
but consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always in
harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the
justice that may consist with wrong-doing. He well deserves to
be called, as he has been called, the Defender of the Constitu-
tion. There are really no blows to be given by him but defensive
ones. He is not a leader, but a follower. His leaders are the men
of ’87. “I have never made an effort,” he says, “and never pro-
pose to make an effort; I have never countenanced an effort,
and never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb the ar-
rangement as originally made, by which the various States came
into the Union.” Still thinking of the sanction which the Consti-
tution gives to slavery, he says, “Because it was a part of the
original compact — let it stand.” Notwithstanding his special
acuteness and ability, he is unable to take a fact out of its merely
political relations, and behold it as it lies absolutely to be dis-
posed of by the intellect — what, for instance, it behooves a man
to do here in America to-day with regard to slavery, but ven-
tures, or is driven, to make some such desperate answer as the
following, while professing to speak absolutely, and as a private
man — from which what new and singular code of social duties
might be inferred? “The manner,” says he, “in which the gov-
ernments of those States where slavery exists are to regulate it is
for their own consideration, under their responsibility to their
constituents, to the general laws of propriety, humanity, and
justice, and to God. Associations formed elsewhere, springing
from a feeling of humanity, or any other cause, have nothing
whatever to do with it. They have never received any encour-
agement from me, and they never will.”

23
 They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have
traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the
Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence
and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into
this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and con-
tinue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.
No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in Amer-
ica. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators,
politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker
has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling
the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its
own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any hero-
ism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the
comparative value of free-trade and of freedom, of union, and of
rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for com-
paratively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce
and manufacturers and agriculture. If we were left solely to the
wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncor-
rected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints
of the people, America would not long retain her rank among
the nations. For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I
have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet
where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent
enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science
of legislation?
The authority of government, even such as I am willing to
submit to — for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can
do better than I, and in many things even those who neither
know nor can do so well — is still an impure one: to be strictly
just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It
can have no pure right over my person and property but what I
concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a limited mon-
archy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress
toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese phi-
losopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis
of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last im-
provement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a
step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of
man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State
until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and
independent power, from which all its own power and authority

24
are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with
imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men,
and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which
even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few
were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by
it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A
State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as
fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect
and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet any-
where seen.

THE END

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