“Civil Disobedience” 1059“the true place for a just man is also a prison.” His
Concord neighbors now seemed to him to be people
who “did not greatly propose to do right.” He rec-
ognized more clearly than before “that most men
think differently from myself.” He was an outsider,
a minority of one.
Thoreau had little confidence in majority rule
or collective action, and he also did not intend to
lead a factional social revolt. His symbolic protest
was mainly a personal effort “to refuse allegiance
to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from
it effectually.” Thoreau affirmed that he did “not
wish to quarrel with any man or nation” and that,
wherever he could do so in good conscience, he sup-
ported and used the state and conformed to its laws.
While many of his peers found their highest truths
expressed in the Bible or the Constitution, Thoreau
consulted his conscience as a “higher” source of
truth. If Thoreau, the outsider, had any personal
community, it was with his mentor Ralph Waldo
Emerson and other transcendentalists whose ideal-
istic individualism meshed with his own.
Despite his skepticism, Thoreau holds out some
hope that if enough people of conscience act boldly
to defy unjust laws and practices, “a really free and
enlightened State” may evolve over time, one that
“can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the
individual with respect as a neighbor.”
Thoreau recognized that government, a codi-
fication of the collective will, can sometimes be
grievously wrong. Like other transcendentalists, he
also trusted the thoughtful individual to discern
what is right. These observations, acting in concert,
have proved themselves durable and influential
insights. Though the essay was not widely circu-
lated in its day, its principles and the example of
the author’s principled behavior have since shown
readers worldwide how a person of conscience can
take an individual stand against unjust laws and
flawed collective practices. Civil rights leaders such
as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi
have put Thoreau’s principles of “passive resistance”
and “civil disobedience” into effective practice. Still,
the tension between individual conscience and the
need for social order, grounded in respect for law, is
a persistent one, requiring constant reexamination.
The priorities in Thoreau’s formula make it a radical
position that, at any given moment in social history,
the law would call illegal.
Roy Neil GravesreSponSIbILIty in “Civil Disobedience”
“Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau’s classic
essay about the responsibility citizens have to resist
unjust laws and bad government, originated in Janu-
ary 1848 as a public lecture entitled “The Rights
and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Govern-
ment.” Since duties is a synonym for responsibilities,
Thoreau’s original heading emphasizes how focused
his piece is on this topic. In May 1849, when the
essay was first published, its title was “Resistance
to Civil Government,” and in 1866, after Thoreau’s
death, it was republished as “Civil Disobedience,” a
heading that has gained popularity. One common
element in the two shorter titles is the emphasis on
the duty that citizens have to “resist” or “disobey”
civil authority when conscience convinces them that
they should. Thoreau’s definition of civic responsi-
bility is a radical one, stressing the individual over
the group and thus opening up the possibilities of
revolution and anarchy.
Thoreau’s argument overtly downplays two usual
“responsibilities” of citizens: voting and obeying the
law. “All voting,” he says, “is a sort of gaming . . . ,
with a slight moral tinge to it.” Social order is also
not the highest priority to him, given that in his
view, majority rule often creates error and oppres-
sion. Whenever the views of the majority conflict
with personal conscience, Thoreau believes that it is
a citizen’s duty to follow his conscience, not the law
or public opinion.
Given that the word responsibility incorporates
the concept of response, another way to phrase the
question that Thoreau raises and tries to answer is,
“What is the right response for a citizen to make
when government is behaving wrongly and its laws
are unjust? Just what should a citizen do?” Because,
as Thoreau notes, government is never perfect,
this question is perpetually relevant and fresh. It is
not an easy question because the tensions between
social order and personal freedom are multiple.
Thoreau’s goal is a large one, then, to try to define
civic responsibility. His personal views are clear but
not simple.