The essay Civil Disobedience, written by Henry David
Thoreau, was his reaction to being put in jail for not paying his poll taxes.
He did not pay his poll taxes because he did not agree with how the government
supported slavery or how they planned to expand through the Mexican War
(Wayne).
In his essay, Thoreau criticizes the government a lot. He
speaks his mind through his essay about the faults of the government and how he
does not want to support it. I think that Henry David Thoreau was cool about
the way that he stood up for what he believed in. He did not use violence, but
instead he just refused to pay.
He talks about how he is not against the government or anything;
he just does not want to support it by paying the tax. He feels that supporting
this government that he does not agree with, it would be the wrong thing to do.
“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.” (Thoreau)
This passage that Thoreau wrote supports his belief that he
does not want to just conform with what the government tells him to do. He
compares his morals and the state’s laws to an acorn and a chestnut. He says
that he must do what is in his nature in order for his survival, just like the
chestnut and acorn must do what is in their nature to survive. The chestnut and
acorn would not just step aside for the other, so why should he?
“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.”
(Thoreau)
In this passage, Thoreau is talking about how it is not his
neighbor’s faults that they go along with the states laws and taxes, and just
because they do go along with it all does not mean that they necessarily agree
with it. He says that since they do not know of any purer truth than that of
the Bible and the Constitution, that they just go along with it and do what
they say. He believes that if everyone knew what he knew, that they would do the
same as him.
This essay is an example of transcendentalism writing.
Transcendentalism writing is the reaction to Puritan and Romanticism (Barney).
It is considered a form of Romanticism and it is characterized by “neither
religious faith nor radical skepticism but instead explored the spiritual and
immaterial aspects of humanity through engagement of the imagination and
contact with nature.” (Barney)
I think that this essay can be characterized as
Transcendentalism because in his essay, he does not go along with the laws, he
does what he feels is the right thing to do.
"Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - 1." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 26
Jan. 2012. <http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil1.html>.
Wayne, Tiffany K. "'Civil Disobedience'." Encyclopedia of
Transcendentalism. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's
Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.
http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin=
ETRA068&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 26, 2012).
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