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Civil Disobedience: The Mexican-American War

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Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau was a philosopher, journalist, and most known as poet. He was born on July 12, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts. He started writing nature poetry in the 1840’s. In 1845 he wrote Walden during his two year stay at Walden Pond. He was most known for his beliefs in transcendentalism and civil disobedience, and was a dedicated abolitionist. In Civil Disobedience Thoreau agrees with the motto, “That government is best which governs least." He continues to say that government rarely proves to be helpful or useful to the citizens. It is so corrupted that that it doesn’t have the will of the people in mind. “Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool.” The Mexican-American War illustrates his ideas perfectly. The American people kept the country free, settled the west, and educated its people. The government doesn’t achieve any of these achievements. …show more content…

“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?” Thoreau says that you should not participate in such evils. This would include not being a part of a corrupted government or institution. He says that the United States is a perfect example of an unjust government. Thoreau believes this because of the United States support of slavery and aggressive war approach. Thoreau has ideas on how to reform from within the

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He objected the injustices of war and slavery, and practiced civil disobedience in his daily life. In the time of Thoreau writing Civil Disobedience, many people believed revolution against the government had not been necessary since the time of the American Revolution. However, Thoreau believes that resisting an abusive government is especially important at this point in time considering that, "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." According to Thoreau, it is the duty of American citizens to promptly revolutionize against slavery and the Mexican-American War, which have both been supported by the corrupted American

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Henry David Thoreau, the son of a Concord pencil-maker, graduated from Harvard in 1837. He worked a short while as a schoolmaster, but then began writing poetry. He soon joined a religious, philosophical, and literary movement called Transcendentalism. The leader of the movement was Ralph Waldo Emerson, a writer and lecturer. At first, Thoreau agreed with Emerson’s teaching that social reform begins with the individual.

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