Civil Disobedience Themes

Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” critiques the American government’s behavior during the second half of the 19^th century. Writing in 1849, a year after the end of the Mexican-American war and during a time of increasingly bitter political division over slavery, Thoreau poses a simple question to his readers: What, if any, of America’s few triumphs can be attributed to the government, given its role in travesties such as slavery and the Mexican-American war…

In “Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau addresses the failures of the American government as it existed in 1849, specifically the government’s enabling of slavery and its waging of the Mexican-American War (which Thoreau saw as an immoral land grab). To Thoreau, the fact that such immoral behavior could be legally justified points to a disconnect between what is simply legal and what is actually just. Thoreau goes further than simply suggesting that law and…

As the title of “Civil Disobedience” suggests, Henry David Thoreau advocates for disobeying the government when it promotes immoral actions (such as slavery or the Mexican-American war), and he attempts to persuade his fellow Americans to pursue justice through such disobedience. Refusing to pay taxes is one of the main acts of civil disobedience—a citizen’s non-violent refusal to obey a government’s laws or demands—that Thoreau encourages. He suggests that people should not enrich the…