Henry David Thoreau grew to have strong
feelings towards the government and his contemporaries, especially after his
incarceration for refusing to a pay a poll tax in July 1846, “probably the 23rd
or 24th” (Harding 199). Thoreau’s refusal to pay the poll tax—“a composite tax”
that included “state tax, county tax, and town tax” (Cain 163)—has been said by
many to have been because of his protests against the Mexican War and slavery
(topics he addressed in his essay, Civil Disobedience);
however, Thoreau also explained that his motives were based on the higher
purpose of conscience: “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 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” (Thoreau 290).
The Mexican War had started in April
of 1846; and slavery had existed in colonies before the Revolutionary War, even
being legalized in Thoreau’s state of Massachusetts in the seventeenth century.
As Thoreau grew older and more aware of the world around him, he began to
question the laws of the State and those who abided by them. Like the patriots
of old before him, he began to take a stand against dictates of society that he
felt were unjust, even if the majority in his day supported them, oft times
begrudgingly. This however, was not Thoreau’s first refusal to pay a tax.
In 1840, the First Parish Church in
Concord, Massachusetts, included Thoreau on their church tax bill to
financially support the congregation, which was enforced and collected by the
town treasurers (Harding 199). The church included him on the tax rolls
“assuming that Thoreau was a member both because he had been brought up in the
church and because his family owned a pew there” (Harding 199). Unwilling to
pay the church tax, he took this matter to the town office and was ordered to
“pay or be locked up in jail” (Harding 200). Before being thrown into jail for
refusing to pay the tax, someone in the town paid the bill for Thoreau. Upset
with the whole ordeal, he declared: “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” (Henry 200). The outcome six years later with
the poll tax was very similar, except Thoreau had spent one night in jail,
before the tax was paid in his behalf.
Over time and with his short-lived imprisonment,
Thoreau began to question the actions of others in regard to the State,
contrary to their own conscience. Regarding the tax-collector, Sam Staples—who
confronted Thoreau over his unpaid taxes and offered, “I’ll pay your tax,
Henry, if you’re hard up” (Harding 199)—Thoreau had hoped that Staple’s
conscience would have prompted him to make an equally bold stance as Thoreau,
when he suggested: “If you really wish to do anything, resign your office”
(Thoreau 297). Rather than see Americans follow the law when they felt that it
was abusive to the rights of man, Thoreau supported the principle thought that
the People should stand for what they felt was right. Thoreau was disappointed
in how people feared the State more than they supported what was right
according to their conscience. The purpose then of Thoreau’s essay, Civil Disobedience, was meant to inspire
Americans to take a stand and truly sustain a government that supported the
voice of the People.
This principle of civil disobedience is not unlike
what Thomas Jefferson meant in the Declaration
of Independence when he wrote that governments were meant to protect American’s
unalienable rights; and “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new government...as to them shall seem most likely to affect their
safety and happiness” (Jefferson). However, the citizens should be patient with
the government and not get up in arms over “light and transient causes” either
(Jefferson). If societal expectations, conventions, or behaviors illustrate a
history of “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism,” then
Americans have a right to rebel against them just as the Founding generation
did against the oppressive acts of Great Britain (Jefferson).
Works
Cited
Cain,
William E., ed. A Historical Guide to Henry David Thoreau. New York: Oxford UP,
2000. Print.
Harding,
Walter. The Days of Henry Thoreau. New York: Dover Publications, 2011. Print.
Jefferson,
Thomas. "Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776." The Avalon
Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. 2008. Web. 7 May 2015.
Thoreau,
Henry David. “From Civil Disobedience.” The
American Tradition in Literature. Vol. 2, 12th ed. Eds. George Perkins and
Barbara Perkins. Boston: McGraw Hill. 289-304. Create eText. http://create.mcgraw-hill.com.
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