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Resistance to Civil Government, also called On the Duty of Civil Disobedience or Civil Disobedience for short, is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849.
1. “Re sis tance to Civil Government” is reprinted here from its Srst appearance, in Aesthetic Papers (1849), edited by the educational reformer Eliz-abeth Peabody (1804– 1894). Thoreau had delivered a version of the essay as a lecture in January and again in February 1848 at the Con-cord Lyceum, under the title “The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Govern-ment ...
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, un moral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made. ¶ 14 Leave a comment on paragraph 14 1 The broadest and ...
Nov 10, 2015 · Resistance to Civil Government. Henry David Thoreau ( July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist, Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and ...
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.
Title Page – 1849
It is thought that this night in jail prompted Thoreau to write Civil Disobedience. Thoreau delivered the first draft of the treatise in which he publicly expounded his reasons for resisting state authority as an oration to the Concord Lyceum in 1848. The text was published in 1849 under the title Resistance to Civil Government.
