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eBook Category: Classic Literature
eBook Description: One of the most important documents of American Political thought, Civil Disobedience eloquently states a position that has influenced the thinking of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and many figures of the 1960's protests against the Vietnam War. Thoreau argues that the progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com/Fictionwise Classic, Published: 1849
Fictionwise Release Date: December 2003

This eBook is also available in the following bundle(s):

• Fictionwise Classics [Authors H-Z Bundle]

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [113 KB], eReader (PDB) [41 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [29 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [25 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [120 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [97 KB], hiebook (KML) [86 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [50 KB], iSilo (PDB) [24 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [30 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [57 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [41 KB]
Words: 9341
Reading time: 26-37 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing ENABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which the will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.

This American government--what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient, by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievious persons who put obstructions on the railroads.

But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.