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Civil Disobedience
by
Henry
David Thoreau
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 people must have some complicated machinery or other, and
hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.
Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon, even
impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we
must all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered 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 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 obstacles 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 mischievious 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 one no
government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known
what kind of government would command his respect, 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
can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can
there not be a government in which the 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 afterward. 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 anytime what I think right. It is truly enough said that a
corporation has no conscience; but a corporation on 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 on injustice. A common and natural result
of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of
soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and
all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars,
against their wills, ay, 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 magazines, at the
service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy Yard, and
behold a marine, such a man as an American 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
accompaniment, 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 out hero
was 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 judgement or of
the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and
earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured 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 the rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as
likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. Avery
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:
"I am too
high born to be propertied, To be a second 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 in pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.
How
does it become a man to behave toward the American government today?
I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I
cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my
government which is the slave's government also.
All men
recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse
allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny 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 commodities brought to
its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about
it, for I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and
possibly this does enough good to counter-balance 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 revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent
is that 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 it, so long as the established
government cannot be resisted or changed without public
inconveniencey, it is the will of God. . .that the established
government be obeyed--and no longer. This principle being admitted,
the justice of every particular 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 and 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 anyone think that Massachusetts
does exactly what is right at the present crisis?
"A drab
of stat, 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 Massachusetts 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 humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the
slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off
foes, but with those who, neat 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 as
materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that
many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness
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, esteeming 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 maybe, fall asleep over
them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot
today? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition;
but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well
disposed, for other to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have
it to regret. At most, they give up 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 possessor 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 right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the
majority. Its obligation, 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
indifferent 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 respectable man what decision they may come to?
Shall we not have the advantage of this 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 reasons 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 unprincipled
foreigner or hireling native, who may have been bought. O for a man
who is a man, and, and my neighbor says, has a bone is his back which
you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the
population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a
square thousand miles in the 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 development
of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and
cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, oncoming 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
to the support of the widows and orphans 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 himself to the eradication of
any, even to 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 contemplations 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
applauded 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 disregards 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.
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 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 and 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 you are cheated, or with saying that
you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due;
but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and
see to it that you are never cheated again. Action from principle,
the perception and the performance of right, changes things and
relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist
wholly with anything which was. It not only divided 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 succeeded, or shall we
transgress them at once? Men, generally, under such a government as
this, think that they ought to wait 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 put out
its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always
crucify Christ and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce
Washington and Franklin rebels?
One would think, that a
deliberate and practical denial of its authority was the only offense
never contemplated by its government; 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 put 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 machine 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 machine. 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 of 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 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 unconcilliatory; but it is
to treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit
that can appreciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better,
like birth and death, which convulse the body.
I do not
hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists 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
effectual, 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
quarrel--and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the
government. How shall he ever know well that he is and does as an
officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to
consider whether he will 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 obstruction
to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impetuous 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
co-partnership, 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 beginning 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 ambassador, who
will devote his days to the settlement of the question of human
rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being threatened 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 in
hospitality to be the ground of a quarrel with her--the Legislature
would not wholly waive the subject of the following winter.
Under
a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man
is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which
Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less despondent 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 separate 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 possible. 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 from office, then the revolution is
accomplished. But even suppose blood shed when the conscience is
wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood 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 as light 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; it was certainly no
great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he
would otherwise 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 that are called the "means"
are increased. The best thing a man can do for his culture 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 Caesar 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
Caesar's government, then pay him back some of his own when he
demands it. "Render therefore to Caesar that which is Caesar'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
seriousness 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
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 yourself, and depend upon yourself
always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs. A
man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a
good subject of the Turkish 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 subjects of shame." No: until I
want the protection 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 enterprise,
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. However, as 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 regarded as a member of any 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 presumption that
time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off
in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I
did not know where to find such 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 my as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked
up. I wondered that it should have concluded 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 nor 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 with 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 live 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 our 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 do. It is not worth the while
to snivel about it. I am not responsible 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, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant
cannot live according to nature, it dies; and so a man.
The
night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in
their shirtsleeves 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
clever man." When the door was locked, he showed me whereto 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 neatest apartment in 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 bean honest an, 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 there 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 circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a
long list of 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,
not the evening 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 holding 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
gray-headed man; and yet a change had come 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 extent 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 they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and
superstitions, 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, looking through their
fingers, which were crossed to represent the jail window, "How
do ye do?" My neighbors did not this 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 mender. When I was let out the next morning, I
proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended show,
joined a huckleberry 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 subject; and as for
supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate 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 allegiance to the State, to
withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace
the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man a musket to
shoot one with--the dollar is innocent--but I am concerned to trace
the effects of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the
State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get what
advantages of her I can, as is usual in such cases.
If others
pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the State,
they do but what they have already done in their own case, or rather
they abet injustice to a greater extent than the State requires. If
they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the individual taxed, to
save his property, or prevent 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 actions 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 feelings 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, secondly, from them to themselves. But if I put
my head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to
the Maker for 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 excuse 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 Out
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 patriot 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; 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 certain 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 governed by policy and expediency.
Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with
authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who
contemplate no essential reform in the existing government; but for
thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, whenever 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 an eloquence of politicians
in general, his are almost the only sensible and valuable words, and
we thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, he is always 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 Constitution. There are really
no blows to be given 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 propose to make an effort; I
have never countenanced an effort, and never mean to countenance an
effort, to disturb the arrangement as originally made, by which
various States came into the Union." Still thinking of the
sanction which the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, "Because
it was 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 disposed of by the intellect--what, for instance, it behooves a
man to do herein American today with regard to slavery--but ventures,
or is driven, to make some such desperate answer to the following,
while professing to speak absolutely, and as a private man--from
which what new and singular of social duties might be inferred? "The
manner," says he, "in which the governments of the States
where slavery exists are to regulate it is for their own
consideration, under the 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 encouragement from me and they never will. [These
extracts have been inserted since the lecture was read -HDT]
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 humanity; but
they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool,
gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward
its fountainhead.
No man with a genius for legislation has
appeared in America. 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
heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the
comparative value of free trade and of freed, of union, and of
rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for
comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and
manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to the wordy wit
of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected 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 monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a
progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese
philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of
the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement
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 are derived, and treats him
accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last 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 I have also
imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.
Typed by: Sameer Parekh
(zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM) 1-12-91