Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” is a political treatise against slavery, war, and an argument that individuals not cede excessive power to government.
A masterpiece of American individualism, the essay is considered by many to be one of the most important pieces of political and philosophical writings ever produced by an American.
Thoreau wrote the essay because of his opposition to slavery and the Mexican–American War. When the government engages in actions that are unjust, he believed that citizens should completely withdraw their support of the government and stop paying taxes, even if it results in imprisonment or violence.
People who said they have been influenced by Civil Disobedience include Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., President John F. Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, suffragist Alice Paul, and authors Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, and William Butler Yeats.
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“[In] Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience…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. I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau.”
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Martin Luther King, Jr., Baptist minister and leader of the Civil Rights Movement