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Disobedience Essay Thesis

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Civil Disobedience Essay Many people are unaware that Henry David Thoreau is the originator of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is refusing to obey a law that is unjust in a peaceful matter. Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, and Martin Luther King Jr are some of many people who have participated in the act of civil disobedience. Between these, Thoreau’s approach to civil disobedience would be most effective in combating unjust laws because he stands for his morals even with negative consequences. Something that made Thoreau’s approach so effective was him standing against slavery by not paying his taxes. In the beginning he explains, “I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government …show more content…

In the middle of “Civil Disobedience” he states, “Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses, it is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. [...] Let us see who is the strongest… When I meet a government which says to me, ''Your money or your life”, why should I be in haste to give it my money?” (Thoreau 5-6).He explains that the government does not wish to hear what the people have to say about unjust laws. They are more worried about their physique and strength rather than what goes on in the country. In addition, he goes on to say that, while he was in jail, “In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall… as they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body… I saw that the state was half-witted… and I lost all my remaining respect for it…” (Thoreau 15). No matter how hard the government tried to get him to agree with them, he stuck to his belief and took a beating instead. The government harming Thoreau shows their true colors and the potential the government has of being ugly. This proves that Thoreau put his morals before anything, no matter the

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