|
On
the Duty of Civil Disobedience
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 men can be
imposed upon, 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 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 mischievious 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 one
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 can not be
based on justice, even as far as men understand it.
Can there not be a government in which the
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
legislator? 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 on 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
on injustice. A common and natural result of an
undue respect for the 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 accompaniment, 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 out hero was
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 judgement 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 the 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 second 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 in pronounced a benefactor and
philanthropist.
How does it
become a man to behave toward the 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 counter-balance 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 that 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 it, so long as the established government
cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniencey, 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 and 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 anyone
think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right
at the present crisis?
"A drab
of stat, 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, neat at home, co-operate 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 as materially wiser
or better than the many. It is not so important that
many should be 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 other to
remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to
regret. At most, they give up only a cheap vote, and
a feeble countenance and Godspeed, 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 this 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 reasons 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, and my neighbor says, has a
bone is 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 the 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 to 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 to 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 hired 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 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 and 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 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 to it 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
divided 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 put
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 offense never contemplated by
its 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 put 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 of 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 be petitioning the Governor or the
Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition
me; and if they should not hear 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 unconcilliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost
kindness and consideration the only spirit that can
appreciate or deserves it. So is all 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 that he is and does as
an officer of the government, or as a man, until he
is obliged to consider whether he will 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 neighborlines 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 co-partnership, 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 of the following winter.
Under a
government which imprisons 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 despondent 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 from office, then the revolution is
accomplished. But even suppose 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; 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 that 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 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, as 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 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 such 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 my 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 nor 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 with 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
live 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 our 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 nature, it dies; and so a
man.
The night in
prison was novel and interesting enough. The
prisoners in their shirtsleeves 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 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 neatest apartment in 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 an, 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 there 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 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, not 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 gray-headed man; and
yet a change had come 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 through 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 jail window, "How
do ye do?" My neighbors did not this 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 mender. When I was let out the next
morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and,
having put on my mended show, 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 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 use and get what
advantages 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 actions 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 feelings 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 for 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 Out 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 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; 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 tim, 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 an 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 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 various States came
into the Union." Still thinking of the sanction
which the Constitution gives to slavery, he says,
"Because it was 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 American today with regard to
slavery--but ventures, or is driven, to make some
such desperate answer to the following, while
professing to speak absolutely, and as a private
man--from which what new and singular of social
duties might be inferred? "The manner,"
says he, "in which the governments of the
States where slavery exists are to regulate it is
for their own consideration, under the
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. [These extracts have been inserted since the
lecture was read -HDT]
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 humanity; 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 fountainhead.
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 t may
utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our
legislators have not yet learned the comparative
value of free trade and of freed, 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 last 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 I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere
seen.
|
