CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
by Henry David Thoreau, 1849
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 on, 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 the 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 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 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 cannot be based on justice, even as far as
men understand it. Can there not be a government 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 legislation? 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 any time what I think right. It is truly enough
said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation 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 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
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 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 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:
"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
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 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 revolutionize.
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 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 present
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 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, near at home,
cooperate 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
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 may be, 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 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 God-speed, 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 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 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 unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been
bought. O 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 returned 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
development of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of
intellect 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 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 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 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 differed 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 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 petitioning 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 essentially 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 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
and Luther, 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 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 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 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 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 bear 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 unconciliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and
consideration 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
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 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 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
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 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 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 today, 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 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
his office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose
blood should flow. Is there not a sort of 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 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 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 what 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 the 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, 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 regarded 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 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 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 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 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 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 its nature, it dies; and so a man.
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 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 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
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 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 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 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 or 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 what use
and get what advantage 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 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,
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 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 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
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 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; 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 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, 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 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 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 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 the various States came into
the Union." Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution
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 disposed of by
the intellect- what, for instance, it behooves a man to do here in
America today with regard to slavery- but ventures, 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 governments 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
encouragement from me, and they never will."
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 continue their pilgrimage toward
its fountain-head.
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
freedom, 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 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
anywhere seen.
THE END