Adapted excerpt from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
by Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau wrote this influential essay in 1849 because he was disgusted with the US government's refusal to end slavery and with its participation in the
Mexican-American War.
The practical reason why a majority are permitted to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, but because they are physically the strongest.
Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not decide right and wrong, but conscience?- in which majorities decide only those questions to
which the rule of expediency is applicable¹? Why has every man a conscience, then? It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the
right. The only obligation I have is to do at any time what I think right.
How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an
instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also.
All men recognize the right to resist the government when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the
case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of 1775. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign
commodities brought to its ports², it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without them. But when a sixth of the population of a
32
Select the correct answer.
Which sentence best restates Thoreau's overall claim?
O A. People who disagree with their government have a duty to revolt.
OB.
All governments should be abolished at once.
O C.
People should not support a government this is unjust.
OD.
The current situation is not as bad as it was in 1775.