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Civil Disobedience. Henry Thoreau. What should your taxes be spent on?. I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. . Thoreau Background. Thoreau spent a night in jail because he refused to pay his poll tax because he disliked the practice of slavery and America’s war in Mexico
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Civil Disobedience Henry Thoreau
Thoreau Background • Thoreau spent a night in jail because he refused to pay his poll tax because he disliked the practice of slavery and America’s war in Mexico • Ralph Waldo Emerson said of Thoreau “No truer American ever lived.”
Questions to be answered • “The government is best that governs least.” Is this true? • “not because they are often the likely to be right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest.” Are the majority most often right? • “But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse.” Does the government allow itself to be changed? • “Why does it always crucify Christ and excommunicate Luther and Copernicus and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?” Are the outsider always right? • Is the only way to fix the government to fight against it?
I was not made to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.
