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1 Oct 2021

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

by David Henry Thoreau

Section 19 - The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to--for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well--is still an impure one to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. 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. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the. individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it. not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? 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. I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men. and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor: which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened. would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet

 

In the passage from Section 19 of "Civil Disobedience, "Thoreau expresses the transcendental ideals of individualism and nonconformity when he writes,

A. T will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I..."

 

B. To be strictly just, it [the government] must have the sanction and consent of the governed.

 

C The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to. is still an impure one...