Question

In this passage from “Civil Disobedience,” what main point is Thoreau making?

I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up… I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar.


It is not logical to lock people up for not paying their taxes.


It is impossible to take away peoples’ freedom just by locking them up.


A short term in a jail is preferable to being with neighbors who don’t understand you.


People should have longer jail terms for serious offenses.

Answer 1

answer a. it is not logical to lock people up for not paying their taxes my evidence is in the text as it states, "I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up."

Answer 2

It is impossible to take away peoples’ freedom just by locking them up.

Thoreau believes that just because you lock up someone's physical being doesn't mean that they are not free. He states in the passage that the townspeople outside of the prison had a more difficult wall "to climb or break through before they could be as free as [he] was." He says that he did not feel confined by the walls that imprisoned him. Throughout this passage, he is stating that he is still free even though his "flesh and blood and bones" were locked up.