39 lines
1.5 KiB
Plaintext
39 lines
1.5 KiB
Plaintext
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Three excerpts from "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau:
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- * -
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A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that
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you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates,
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powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and
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dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense
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and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and
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produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a
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damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably
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inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts
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and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?
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- * -
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How does it become a man to behave toward the American government
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today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with
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it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as
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my government which is the slave's government also.
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- * -
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All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to
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refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny
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or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say
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that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in
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the Revolution of '75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad
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government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its
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ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for
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I can do without them.
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- * -
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Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
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