“On Civil Disobedience” an essay by Henry David Thoreau

Introduction

             Henry David Thoreau put into practice the ideas expressed in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance.”  Thoreau spent a night in jail in 1844 for refusing to pay a poll tax used to finance a government that condoned slavery in the South and waged war with Mexico in the West.  In 1847 Thoreau published an essay inspired by his experience in jail.  The essay affirms Thoreau’s faith in the individual conscience and advocates using civil disobedience – passive or nonviolent acts of political resistance – to protest government action.