thoreau on the duty of civil disobedience

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. 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. Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.

Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage.

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. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. 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. 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. 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. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. 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. Government is at best but an expedient but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. 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 the will have.

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. Original title: Resistance to Civil Government

Thoreau on the duty of civil disobedience