Henry David Thoreau and "Civil Disobedience"

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Henry David Thoreau

Oxford Dictionary of Politics: Henry David Thoreau

• (1817-62) American essayist. Born in Concord, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard College. Thoreau is famous for having coined the term civil disobedience. His most powerful and influential political essay, ‘Civil Disobedience’, originally published under the title ‘Resistance to Civil Government’ (1849), exalts the law of conscience over civil law. Incensed by the Mexican War (1846-8) and the Fugitive Slave Laws of 1793 and 1850, which ensured federal assistance to slave-catchers, Thoreau became concerned with widespread personal complicity in injustice. As a public act of protest against the Mexican War, Thoreau refused to pay his poll tax and was imprisoned overnight. 1854 Thoreau published Walden, or, Life in the Woods, a plea for simplicity in everyday life.  — Vittorio Bufacchi

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Henry David Thoreau

• Thoreau was an activist involved in the abolitionist movement on many fronts: he participated in the Underground Railroad, protested against the Fugitive Slave Law, and gave support to John Brown and his party. Most importantly, he provides a justification for principled revolt and a method of nonviolent resistance, both of which would have a considerable influence on revolutionary movements in the twentieth century. In his essay on “Civil Disobedience,” originally published as “Resistance to Civil Government,” he defends the validity of conscientious objection to unjust laws, which ought to be transgressed at once. Although at times it sounds as if Thoreau is advocating anarchy, what he demands is a better government, and what he refuses to acknowledge is the authority of one that has become so morally corrupt as to lose the consent of those governed. “There will never be a really free and enlightened State,” he argues, “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” (“Civil Disobedience”). There are simply more sacred laws to obey than the laws of society, and a just government—should there ever be such a thing, he says—would not be in conflict with the individual conscience.

Thoreau Reader

Civil Disobedience  Originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government" By Henry David Thoreau - 1849 - with annotated text

Desobediencia Civil - Spanish translation by Hernando Jiménez

• While Walden can be applied to almost anyone's life, "Civil Disobedience" is like a venerated architectural landmark: it is preserved and admired, and sometimes visited, but for most of us there are not many occasions when it can actually be used. Still, although seldom mentioned without references to Gandhi or King, "Civil Disobedience" has more history than many suspect. In the 1940's it was read by the Danish resistance, in the 1950's it was cherished by those who opposed McCarthyism, in the 1960's it was influential in the struggle against South African apartheid, and in the 1970's it was discovered by a new generation of anti-war activists. ...