Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau - The Diigo Meta page

• 19 Jul 08
  

  rob g

  This text is sometimes presented under the title On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Its original title is Resistance to Civil Government.

  government democracy disobedience elections

  • "I am too high-born to be propertied,

    
    

    To be a secondary at control,

    
    

    Or useful serving-man and instrument

    
    

    To any sovereign state throughout the world." [William Shakespeare King John]
  • 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.
• 16 Aug 06
  

  Ophir Radnitz

  articles history politics

Page Comments

• 
  Ophir Radnitz on 2006-08-16
  Civil Disobedience is an essay by Henry David Thoreau. Published in 1849 under the title Resistance to Civil Government, it expressed Thoreau’s belief that people should not allow governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty both to avoid doing injustice directly and to avoid allowing their acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War.

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