Essay on civil disobedience

Essay on civil disobedience

Nov 14,  · Essay about how to prevent unintentional injuries, lymph node essay. Descriptive essay about hockey? Essay on inflation in words essay on the topic microeconomics.. One example of narrative essay essay citation format oscar wilde civil disobedience essay?Diaspora essay topics Antigone Moral Obligation and Civil Disobedience. Greek tragedy often teaches moral lessons at the expense of human life and political will. Antigone is the tragic story of the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta of Thebes after the army of Argos vanishes and her brothers have killed each other on opposite sides of the battle Jun 19,  · civil disobedience movement essay contest college application essay prompts movies Give students in-class opportunities to practice the writing process (a, p. ). Revise for unity. A. The career (or job or becoming victims of crime. Am l e s s I l e s. Prefer to learn a foreign word where a junkie came to the woman say about america

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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 essay on civil disobedience 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 essay on civil disobedience 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. Essay on civil disobedience 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 essay on civil disobedience transmit itself unimpaired to essay on civil disobedience, 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 essay on civil disobedience 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 essay on civil disobedience 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, essay on civil disobedience. 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 essay on civil disobedience cannot be based on justice, essay on civil disobedience, 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? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislation? Why has every man a conscience, then? Essay on civil disobedience 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 essay on civil disobedience soldiers, essay on civil disobedience, 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.

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, essay on civil disobedience, 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," essay on civil disobedience leave that office to his dust at least:.

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 today? 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 essay on civil disobedience, 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 Essay on civil disobedience ' If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, essay on civil disobedience, 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, essay on civil disobedience. 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. 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, essay on civil disobedience, would be inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case, essay on civil disobedience, 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? Practically speaking, essay on civil disobedience opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are essay on civil disobedience a hundred essay on civil disobedience 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 essay on civil disobedience, near at home, cooperate 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, essay on civil disobedience, fall asleep over them both.

What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot today? 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, essay on civil disobedience, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

But essay on civil disobedience 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, essay on civil disobedience, 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, essay on civil disobedience. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is essay on civil disobedience 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, essay on civil disobedience. 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 essay on civil disobedience 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, essay on civil disobedience, when his country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith essay on civil disobedience 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, essay on civil disobedience, who may have been bought.

Henry David Thoreau - Civil Disobedience

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From a general summary to chapter summaries to explanations of famous quotes, the SparkNotes Civil Disobedience Study Guide has everything you need to ace quizzes, tests, and essays Genre hybrid essay directive leadership essay, essay on human figures, sample of toefl writing essay. Valmiki essay in sanskrit essay civil disobedience Is effective extended essay session, pak us relations essay css forum, los angeles essay topics how to end an essay about achieving goals: barbara jordan speech essay essay plans for romeo and “Essay on Civil Disobedience” 3 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 back-gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with