On the duty
of civil disobedience
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
on, 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 the 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 mischievous 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 once 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 cannot be
based on justice, even as far as men understand it.
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. 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
of 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 of injustice. A common
and natural result of an undue respect for 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 accompaniments,
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 our hero we 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 judgment 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
they 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 secondary 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 is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.
How does it become a man to behave toward this
American
government to-day? 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 counterbalance 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 the 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 is, so long as the established government
cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency,
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
as 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 any one
think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right
at the present crisis?
“A drab of state, 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, near 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 materially wiser
or better than the many. It is not so important
that many should be as 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
to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and
sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest
and with effect. They will wait, well disposed,
for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer
have it to regret. At most, they give 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 his 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 reason 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.
Oh for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says,
has a bone in 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 this
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 for 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 the 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
the 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 an 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 that 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 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 divides
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 be on the alert to point
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 offence never contemplated
by 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 placed 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 which
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 do something wrong.
It is not my business to 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 unconciliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost
kindness and consideration the only spirit that can
appreciate or deserves it. So is an 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 what he is and does as an officer of the government,
or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether
he shall 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 neighborliness 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 copartnership, 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 the following winter.
Under a government which imprisons
any unjustly, the true place
for a just man is also a prison. The proper
place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has
provided for her freer and less desponding 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 his office, then the revolution is accomplished.
But even suppose blood should flow. Is there
not a sort of 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; and 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 what 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 the 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, at 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 incorporated 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 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 me 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 not 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 wit 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 have 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
or 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 its nature, it dies; and so
a man.
The night in prison was novel
and interesting enough. The
prisoners in their shirt-sleeves 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 a
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 the neatest apartment
in the 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 man, 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 here
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 verses which were composed by some 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, nor 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 tottering
and gray-headed man; and yet a change had 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 though 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 grating of a jail window, “How
do ye do?” My neighbors did not thus 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 mended. When I was let
out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand,
and, having put on my mended shoe, 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 or 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 what use and get what advantage
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 action
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
feeling 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 of 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
Our
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 a 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; but seen from a point of view a little higher,
they are what I 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 time, 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 and 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 by 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 the various
States came into the Union.” Still thinking
of the sanction which the Constitution gives to slavery,
he says, “Because it was a 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 America to-day with
regard to slavery, but ventures, or is driven, to
make some such desperate answer as the following,
while professing to speak absolutely, and as a private
man — from which what new and singular code
of social duties might be inferred? “The
manner,” says he, “in which the governments
of those States where slavery exists are to regulate
it is for their own consideration, under their 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.”
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 humility; 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 fountain-head.
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 it may utter,
or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators
have not yet learned the comparative value of free-trade
and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.
They have no genius or talent for comparatively humble
questions of taxation and finance, commerce and manufacturers
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 least 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 also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.
