‘Civil Disobedience’ by Henry David Thoreau: An essay written by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” was published in 1849. In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit the government to overrule their consciences, and that they should avoid allowing the government to force them to promote injustice. Thoreau was reportedly motivated to write this essay because of his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was very intrigued by this essay. In his autobiography, he wrote, “During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience for the first time. Here, in this courageous New Englander’s refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery’s territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.”
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 02:52:55 +0000
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