Civil Disobedience

[3]    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 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 (2) and Luther,(3) and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?

[5]    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.

 

Thoreau believes that there are many unjust laws that the government has passed and the citizens have allowed them to pass these laws. The question is do we follow these laws? The way he see things is that, men don’t act and try to resist the government on things that are wrong or sinful. Instead they wait and persuade others to act with them. People fear the government and they fear the actions that the government might take against them if they try to resist. Thoreau says this makes things worse because, by not resisting the government we have given them more power. He starts to question the government and citizens for allowing its government to be able to push them into doing things unlawful and sinful. In the other quote he is talking about the citizens having the power of injustice. Since they have the power of injustice than they should let go of the machine (government). After a while the machine will wear out. So if we are standing as agents to stop the machine then we should break the law. So that we do not continue to allow the law to be unjust.

The reason why I picked these quotes is because Thoreau challenges both the government and the citizens. In his opinion the government is not measuring up to, as we talked about in the last class the higher power instead they are basically living in sin. The way he challenges the citizens is by saying they allowed the government to get to a point where they have power and control over them and they also allow the machine to scare them into not resisting. Another reason why I chose these two quotes is because he talked about examples in history where the people were manipulated by higher authority and did nothing even though they knew it was unlawful. He also uses religion as the bases, as the way the government should be run. If anything goes against that bases in his opinion it’s ok to break the law and I thought was fascinating because that’s exactly what he did.