The Pros And Cons Of Civil Disobedience

1135 Words5 Pages
Throughout history, people had many views of how the US government should be followed or not. We had Samuel Adams who supported that inhabitants must follow the government and people like Thomas Paine and Henry David Thoreau who supported that the government must follow the people. Civil disobedience also comes to mind when defying the government. People question if it 's safe or not or whether it is allowed because of the consequences. These three historical figures each has a different perspective how the government should be handled. First, we look at Samuel Adams who would want citizens to follow the current government of the US, but wouldn’t follow the British Parliament. The British Parliament placed the Stamp Acts and Townshend Acts on the colonies, which Adams strongly resented. Adams wanted to enforce salutary neglect which would disobey England. “When the British Parliament turned to its next attempt to tax the colonies, this time by a set of taxes which it hoped would not excite as much opposition, the colonial leaders organized boycotts” (A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present 62) is an example of how the colonies disobeyed England. Adams stated, he wanted “"No Mobs- No Confusions-No Tumult" (A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present 63) against the British. He supported civil disobedience with England, but not with the US because he felt that people had a voice in their government unlike the people who had a