Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)

Civil Disobedience

First page of "Resistance to Civil Government" as published in Aesthetic Papers, in 1849.
Author	Henry David Thoreau
Language	English
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print
Text	Civil Disobedience at Wikisource

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Resistance to Civil Government, also called On the Duty of Civil Disobedience or Civil Disobedience for short, is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his repulsion of slavery and the Mexican–American War (1846–1848).