Comparaison of civil disobedience – History

Order Description
Please read the excerpt from Henry David Thoreau’s ‘On Civil Disobedience’ attached. How is Thoreau’s concept of evil disobedience both similar and different to Martin Luther King Jr’s? Compare and contrast Thoreau’s ‘On Civil Disobedience’ with Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ (also attached).
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AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER – UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]”
16 April 1963
My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present
activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought
to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than
such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I
feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to
answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which
argues against “outsiders coming in.” I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta,
Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial
resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to
engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and
when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here
because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.
But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century
B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home
towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far
corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own
home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta
and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow,
provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an
outsider anywhere within its bounds.
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to
express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of
you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and
does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in
Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community
with no alternative.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices
exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham.
There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the
most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes
have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of
Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal
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facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers.
But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.
Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham’s economic community. In
the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants–for example, to remove the
stores’ humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the
leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all
demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken
promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our
hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative
except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case
before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we
decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we
repeatedly asked ourselves: “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the
ordeal of jail?” We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except
for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal
program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure
to bear on the merchants for the needed change.
Then it occurred to us that Birmingham’s mayoral election was coming up in March, and we speedily
decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public
Safety, Eugene “Bull” Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run off, we decided again to
postpone action until the day after the run off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the
issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement
after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct action program could be
delayed no longer.
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?”
You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent
direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly
refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be
ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather
shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent
tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as
Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the
bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must
we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from
the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The
purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the
door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved
Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in
Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: “Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?”
The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded
about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of
Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more
gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I
have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to
desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say
to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.
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Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.
Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr
has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be
demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed”
in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have
heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost
always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long
delayed is justice denied.”
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia
and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse
and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have
never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your
mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled
policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your
twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;
when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six
year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television,
and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see
ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her
personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an
answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”;
when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable
corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out
by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle
name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother
are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that
you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are
plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of
“nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup
of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs,
you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our
willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey
the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may
seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate
breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just
and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would
agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A
just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that
is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a
human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just.
Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation
distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the
segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin
Buber, substitutes an “I it” relationship for an “I thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the
status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is
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morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential
expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can
urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to
disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.
Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or
power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is
difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow
and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is
unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting
or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state’s segregation laws
was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes
from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a
majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances
be considered democratically structured?
Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a
charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a
permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to
deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.
I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or
defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust
law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual
who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment
in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest
respect for law.
Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the
refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a
higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face
hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the
Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil
disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the
Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in
Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and
comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the
Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that
over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached
the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the
White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order”
than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the
presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with
your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s
freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more
convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute
misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright
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rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of
establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that
block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present
tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the
Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect
the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the
creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in
the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up
but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed,
with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion
before it can be cured.
In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they
precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man because his
possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his
unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided
populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because his unique God
consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God’s will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must
come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease
his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must
protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth
concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in
Texas. He writes: “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is
possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to
accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.” Such an attitude stems from a
tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of
time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or
constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than
have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and
actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on
wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and
without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time
creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the
promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now
is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow
clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I
stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made
up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense
of “somebodiness” that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who,
because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by
segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and
hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist
groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad’s
Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro’s frustration over the continued existence of racial
discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely
repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible “devil.”
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I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the “do nothingism” of
the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of
love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way
of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many
streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our
white brothers dismiss as “rabble rousers” and “outside agitators” those of us who employ nonviolent direct
action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and
despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies–a development that would inevitably lead to
a frightening racial nightmare.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself,
and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright
of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously,
he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow
brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of
great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed
the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The
Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let
him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he
must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through
violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: “Get rid of your
discontent.” Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the
creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I
was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I
gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use
you, and persecute you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and
righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: “I bear in
my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Was not Martin Luther an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do
otherwise, so help me God.” And John Bunyan: “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a
butchery of my conscience.” And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.”
And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .” So the
question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists
for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In
that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were
crucified for the same crime–the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell
below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and
thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative
extremists.
I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected
too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep
groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice
must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our
white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to
it. They are still all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some -such as Ralph McGill, Lillian
Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle–have written about our
struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South.
They have languished in filthy, roach infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view
them as “dirty nigger-lovers.” Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized
the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful “action” antidotes to combat the disease of
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segregation. Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with
the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the
fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings,
for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a
nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several
years ago.
But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church.
I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I
say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been
sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.
When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few
years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and
rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents,
refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have
been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained
glass windows.
In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of
this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the
channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you
would understand. But again I have been disappointed.
I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation
decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: “Follow this decree because
integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother.” In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted
upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and
sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice,
I have heard many ministers say: “Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.” And
I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a
strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.
I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On
sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with
their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious
education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: “What kind of people worship here? Who
is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of
interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance
and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to
rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?”
Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church.
But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is
not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being
the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But,
oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being
nonconformists.
There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at
being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a
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thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed
the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed
and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”‘
But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God
rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be
“astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as
infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak,
ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being
disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the
church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the
sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be
dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young
people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.
Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo
to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church
within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some
noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of
conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure
congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of
the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed
from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the
faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has
preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through
the dark mountain of disappointment. I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive
hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have
no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood.
We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is
freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny. Before the
pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the
Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our
forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their
masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they
continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we
now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal
will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other
point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police
force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.” I doubt that you would have so warmly commended
the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that
you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of
Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro
girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as
they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot
join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.
It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense
they have conducted themselves rather “nonviolently” in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil
system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that
the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use
4/19/2014 Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.] http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html 9/9
immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so,
to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather
nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of
nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: “The last temptation is
the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”
I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime
courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day
the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose
that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the
life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year
old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not
to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her
weariness: “My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest.” They will be the young high school and college
students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting
in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’ sake. One day the South will know that when
these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is
best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby
bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in
their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can
assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what
else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and
pray long prayers?
If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg
you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that
allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.
I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for
me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a
Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep
fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant
tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating
beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Published in:
King, Martin Luther Jr.
Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.
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Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau
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 they 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 on, 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 the 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 mischievous 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.
After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not
because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in
which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not
virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? – in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen
ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislation? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and
subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any
time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.
Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural
result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable
order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and
produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what
are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such
a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts – a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out
alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, though it may be,
“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.”
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse
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comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth
and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of
dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others – as most legislators,
politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders – serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to
serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few – as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men – serve the state with their
consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will
not submit to be “clay,” and “stop a hole to keep the wind away,” but leave that office to his dust at least:
“I am too high-born to be propertied,
To be a secondary at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world.”
He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and
philanthropist.
How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an
instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also.
All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and
unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution Of ’75. If one were to tell me that this was a
bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without
them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But
when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when a
sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign
army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that
the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.
Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, in his chapter on the “Duty of Submission to Civil Government,” resolves all civil obligation into
expediency; and he proceeds to say that “so long as the interest of the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the established government cannot be resisted
or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will of God… that the established government be obeyed – and no longer. This principle being admitted, the
justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability and
expense of redressing it on the other.” Of this, he says, every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases to which the
rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a
drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case,
shall lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.
In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does any one think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis?
“A drab of state, a cloth-o’-silver slut,
To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the dirt.”
Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and
farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost
what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, cooperate with, and do the bidding of those far away, and without whom the latter
would be harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not materially wiser or better
than the many. It is not so important that many should be as good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole
lump. There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves
children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the
question of freedom to the question of free trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall
asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do
nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a
cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous
man. But it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting
naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should
prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only
expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of
the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are
indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the
abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.
I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are
politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to any independent, intelligent, and respectable man what decision they may come to? Shall we not have the
advantage of his wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we not count upon some independent votes? Are there not many individuals in the country who do not
attend conventions? But no: I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has
more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any
purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been bought. O for a man who
is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned
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too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men to settle here? The
American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow – one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and
cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on coming into the world, is to see that the almshouses are in good repair; and, before yet he has lawfully
donned the virile garb, to collect a fund for the support of the widows and orphans that may be; who, in short, ventures to live only by the aid of the Mutual
Insurance company, which has promised to bury him decently.
It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other
concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote
myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that
he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, “I should like to have them order me
out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico; – see if I would go”; and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and
so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain
the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to
that degree that it differed one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name of Order and Civil
Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it
becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable,
the noble are most likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are
undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to
disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves – the union between themselves and the State – and refuse to pay their quota
into its treasury? Do not they stand in the same relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from
resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?
How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out
of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him
to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again. Action from principle, the
perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not
only divides States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at
once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they
should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is
it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not
encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate
Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?
One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its authority was the only offence never contemplated by government; else, why has it not assigned its
definite, its suitable and proportionate, penalty? If a man who has no property refuses but once to earn nine shillings for the State, he is put in prison for a period
unlimited by any law that I know, and determined only by the discretion of those who placed him there; but if he should steal ninety times nine shillings from the
State, he is soon permitted to go at large again.
If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth – certainly the machine will wear out.
If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the
evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the
machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man’s life will be gone. I
have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything
to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong. It is not my business to be petitioning the
Governor or the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they should not bear my petition, what should I do then? But in this case the State has
provided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconciliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and
consideration the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it. So is an change for the better, like birth and death, which convulse the body.
I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the
government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they
have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.
I meet this American government, or its representative, the State government, directly, and face to face, once a year – no more – in the person of its tax-gatherer;
this is the only mode in which a man situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly, Recognize me; and the simplest, the most effectual, and, in the
present posture of affairs, the indispensablest mode of treating with it on this head, of expressing your little satisfaction with and love for it, is to deny it then. My
civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with – for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment that I quarrel – and he has voluntarily
chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to
consider whether he shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and
see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action. I know this well,
that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name – if ten honest men only – ay, if one HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to
hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it
matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our mission,
Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service, but not one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the State’s ambassador, who will devote his days to the
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settlement of the question of human rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner of
Massachusetts, that State which is so anxious to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister – though at present she can discover only an act of inhospitality to be the
ground of a quarrel with her – the Legislature would not wholly waive the subject the following winter.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which Massachusetts has
provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves
out by their principles. It is there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race should find
them; on that separate, but more free and honorable, ground, where the State places those who are not with her, but against her – the only house in a slave State
in which a free man can abide with honor. If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they
would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can
combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is
powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just
men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not
be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a
peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, “But what shall I do?” my answer is, “If
you really wish to do anything, resign your office.” When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is
accomplished. But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real
manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now.
I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, rather than the seizure of his goods – though both will serve the same purpose – because they who assert
the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time in accumulating property. To such the State
renders comparatively small service, and a slight tax is wont to appear exorbitant, particularly if they are obliged to earn it by special labor with their hands. If
there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man – not to make any invidious
comparison – is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and
his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he would otherwise be taxed to
answer; while the only new question which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet. The
opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the “means” are increased. The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to
endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor. Christ answered the Herodians according to their condition. “Show me the tributemoney,”
said he; – and one took a penny out of his pocket; – if you use money which has the image of Caesar on it, and which he has made current and valuable,
that is, if you are men of the State, and gladly enjoy the advantages of Caesar’s government, then pay him back some of his own when he demands it. “Render
therefore to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God those things which are God’s” – leaving them no wiser than before as to which was which; for they did not
wish to know.
When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the question, and their regard
for the public tranquillity, the long and the short of the matter is, that they cannot spare the protection of the existing government, and they dread the
consequences to their property and families of disobedience to it. For my own part, I should not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of the State. But, if
I deny the authority of the State when it presents its tax-bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is
hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects. It will not be worth the while to accumulate
property; that would be sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and
depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs. A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good
subject of the Turkish government. Confucius said: “If a state is governed by the principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame; if a state is not
governed by the principles of reason, riches and honors are the subjects of shame.” No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in
some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to
refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it
would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.
Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching my
father attended, but never I myself. “Pay,” it said, “or be locked up in the jail.” I declined to pay. But, unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see
why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster; for I was not the State’s schoolmaster, but I supported myself by
voluntary subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its tax-bill, and have the State to back its demand, as well as the Church. However, at the
request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in writing: – “Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish
to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not joined.” This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it. The State, having thus learned that
I did not wish to be regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original presumption
that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know where to
find a complete list.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet
thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution
which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it
could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there
was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a
great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons
who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone
wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they
were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against
whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know
its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.
Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but
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with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude?
They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to have this way or that by
masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, “Your money or your life,” why should I be in haste to give it my
money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not
responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by
side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one,
perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.
The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the doorway, when I entered.
But the jailer said, “Come, boys, it is time to lock up”; and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps returning into the hollow apartments. My roommate
was introduced to me by the jailer as “a first-rate fellow and a clever man.” When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he
managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably the neatest
apartment in the town. He naturally wanted to know where I came from, and what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I asked him in my turn how he
came there, presuming him to be an honest man, of course; and, as the world goes, I believe he was. “Why,” said he, “they accuse me of burning a barn; but I
never did it.” As near as I could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn when drunk, and smoked his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the
reputation of being a clever man, had been there some three months waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as much longer; but he was quite
domesticated and contented, since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was well treated.
He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that if one stayed there long, his principal business would be to look out the window. I had soon read all the
tracts that were left there, and examined where former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had been sawed off, and heard the history of the various
occupants of that room; for I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only
house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which
were composed by some young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them.
I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should never see him again; but at length he showed me which was my bed, and left me to blow out the
lamp.
It was like travelling into a far country, such as I had never expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I never had heard the town clock
strike before, nor the evening sounds of the village; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It was to see my native village in the light
of the Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices of old burghers
that I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village inn – a wholly new and
rare experience to me. It was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I never had seen its institutions before. This is one of its peculiar
institutions; for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what its inhabitants were about.
In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole in the door, in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and holding a pint of chocolate, with brown
bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for the vessels again, I was green enough to return what bread I had left; but my comrade seized it, and said that I
should lay that up for lunch or dinner. Soon after he was let out to work at haying in a neighboring field, whither he went every day, and would not be back till
noon; so he bade me good-day, saying that he doubted if he should see me again.
When I came out of prison – for some one interfered, and paid that tax – I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the common, such as he
observed who went in a youth and emerged a tottering and gray-headed man; and yet a change had to my eyes come over the scene – the town, and State, and
country – greater than any that mere time could effect. I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived. I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived
could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; that they were a
distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions, as the Chinamen and Malays are; that in their sacrifices to humanity they ran no risks, not even to their
property; that after all they were not so noble but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few prayers,
and by walking in a particular straight though useless path from time to time, to save their souls. This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe that
many of them are not aware that they have such an institution as the jail in their village.
It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were
crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, “How do ye do?” My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as if I
had returned from a long journey. I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I
proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in
half an hour – for the horse was soon tackled – was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere
to be seen.
This is the whole history of “My Prisons.”
I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and as for supporting schools, I
am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the
State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot one with –
the dollar is innocent – but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still
make what use and get what advantage of her I can, as is usual in such cases.
If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the State, they do but what they have already done in their own case, or rather they abet
injustice to a greater extent than the State requires. If they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the individual taxed, to save his property, or prevent his going to
jail, it is because they have not considered wisely how far they let their private feelings interfere with the public good.
This, then, is my position at present. But one cannot be too much on his guard in such a case, lest his action be biased by obstinacy or an undue regard for the
opinions of men. Let him see that he does only what belongs to himself and to the hour.
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I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as
they are not inclined to? But I think again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind. Again, I
sometimes say to myself, When many millions of men, without heat, without ill will, without personal feeling of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only,
without the possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their present demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other
millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute force? You do not resist cold and hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately; you quietly submit
to a thousand similar necessities. You do not put your head into the fire. But just in proportion as I regard this as not wholly a brute force, but partly a human
force, and consider that I have relations to those millions as to so many millions of men, and not of mere brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal is possible,
first and instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them, and, secondly, from them to themselves. But if I put my head deliberately into the fire, there is no
appeal to fire or to the Maker of fire, and I have only myself to blame. If I could convince myself that I have any right to be satisfied with men as they are, and to
treat them accordingly, and not according, in some respects, to my requisitions and expectations of what they and I ought to be, then, like a good Mussulman and
fatalist, I should endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the will of God. And, above all, there is this difference between resisting this and a
purely brute or natural force, that I can resist this with some effect; but I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change the nature of the rocks and trees and beasts.
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I
may say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on this head; and
each year, as the tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to review the acts and position of the general and State governments, and the spirit of the
people, to discover a pretext for conformity.
“We must affect our country as our parents,
And if at any time we alienate
Our love or industry from doing it honor,
We must respect effects and teach the soul
Matter of conscience and religion,
And not desire of rule or benefit.”
I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my work of this sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better a patriot than my fellow-countrymen. Seen
from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very respectable; even this State and this American
government are, in many respects, very admirable, and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; but seen from a point of view a
little higher, they are what I have described them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or
thinking of at all?
However, the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live under a
government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers
or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.
I know that most men think differently from myself; but those whose lives are by profession devoted to the study of these or kindred subjects content me as little
as any. Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but have no
resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which
we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy
and expediency. Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who
contemplate no essential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, he never once glances at the subject. I know of
those whose serene and wise speculations on this theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind’s range and hospitality. Yet, compared with the cheap
professions of most reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom and eloquence of politicians in general, his are almost the only sensible and valuable words, and we
thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, he is always strong, original, and, above all, practical. Still, his quality is not wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer’s truth is
not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist
with wrong-doing. He well deserves to be called, as he has been called, the Defender of the Constitution. There are really no blows to be given by him but
defensive ones. He is not a leader, but a follower. His leaders are the men of ’87 – “I have never made an effort,” he says, “and never propose to make an effort;
I have never countenanced an effort, and never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb the arrangement as originally made, by which the various States came
into the Union.” Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, “Because it was a part of the original compact – let it stand.”
Notwithstanding his special acuteness and ability, he is unable to take a fact out of its merely political relations, and behold it as it lies absolutely to be disposed of
by the intellect – what, for instance, it behooves a man to do here in America today with regard to slavery – but ventures, or is driven, to make some such
desperate answer as the following, while professing to speak absolutely, and as a private man – from which what new and singular code of social duties might be
inferred? “The manner,” says he, “in which the governments of those States where slavery exists are to regulate it is for their own consideration, under their
responsibility to their constituents, to the general laws of propriety, humanity, and justice, and to God. Associations formed elsewhere, springing from a feeling of
humanity, or any other cause, have nothing whatever to do with it. They have never received any encouragement from me, and they never will.”
They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it
there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their
pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.
No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the
thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own
sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of
freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and
manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and
the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations. For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right
to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds
on the science of legislation?
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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 anywhere seen.
The End
Note: Henry David Thoreau (1817-62), American writer and naturalist. 1846, one year after he had moved into his famous cabin on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s
land at Walden Pond, Massachusetts, Thoreau refused to pay his tax, as a protest against slavery in America. He went to jail (although his aunt payed the tax for
him, so he was released the next morning). Thoreau then wrote “Resistance to Civil Government,” which was published 1849 and later became known as “Civil
Disobedience.” /KET
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