The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
by Henry David Thoreau

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

Author: Henry David Thoreau

Release Date: 12 June 2004 [EBook #71]
[Date last updated: March 1, 2005]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ***

Typed by Sameer Parekh (zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM)

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

by Henry David Thoreau

[1849, original title: Resistance to Civil Government]

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