Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau may be most known for his lonely stint at WaldenPond, but he also wrote many essays commenting on his times, and the worldaround him. Thoreau consistently used his own brand of civil disobedienceto protest the wrongs he saw around him. One means he used to protest washis refusal to pay a local poll tax. He had not been paying the tax sinceapproximately 1842, in a protest against slavery, and his non-paymentcaught up with him in 1846, when he spent a night in the local jail. Hewas prepared to stay longer, but someone, probably a relative, paid thetax, and he was released. His brief stay was quite influential in his workhowever, and he wrote "Civil Disobedience" partly as a retort about his Thoreau wrote "Civil Disobedience" in 1849, after his short stay injail, and it is quite clear the essay has had a strong influence on a widevariety of politicians and leaders. First, the definition of civildisobedience must be explored. One writer called civil disobedience "Aparadigm case of civil disobedience is an action that is conscientious andillegal but also both non-violent and 'public'--which is to say, for one,
He wrote, "Let every man makeknown what kind of government would command his respect, and that will beone step toward obtaining it" (Thoreau 48). This isan example of civil disobedience at its' best. The British treated the Indianpeople poorly, and they had few rights. From the time Rosa Parks refused to give upher seat to a white person in 1955, to the time when the Civil Rights Actwas passed in 1965, blacks had to fight hard for everything they won. The importance of Thoreau's essay cannot be ignored. One writer states, "In short, thecivil disobedient tends to be an engaged participant in the practice of thepublic evaluation of the law" (Meyer 69). ent accepts some societal punishment for breakingthe law" (Meyer 69). It is clearthat King attempted to bridge civil disobedience with civic approval, andtried to gain civil rights for blacks across America by blending civildisorder with moral understanding. In fact, many have called it the"textbook" of civil disobedience, as this writer does. Thoreau's essay was not only influential to those who had problemswith the government and its aims, such as Gandhi and King; there are placesin his essay where he seems to be describing them perfectly. Therefore, the people arestill not being treated "accordingly," and still have to fight for theirrights and their freedoms. As Thoreau says, "Iwas not born to be forced" (Thoreau 60), and this is the core of hisbelief, and the core of civil disobedience. Clearly, he sees the only way to create a "perfect" world is to rise up andspeak out when injustices occur, and this is exactly what Gandhi and Kingdid, and why they became "martyrs" for their causes.
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