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Henry David Thoreau And Civil Disobedience

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Henry David Thoreau and Civil Disobedience
“ Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.” (Brainy). Civil disobedience is breaking a law for a better reason (Suber). The purpose of civil disobedience is to change a law, or act of the government. Henry David Thoreau involvement in civil disobedience was due to personal influence, he chose to participate in civil disobedience to protest slavery and the Mexican-American war, and he did achieve success using this controversial method for standing up for what he strongly believes is right . To understand Henry David Thoreau’s role in civil disobedience one must first have knowledge of his personal life and early years. He was born in 1817 (Witherell). He lived and grew up almost …show more content…

His act of civil disobedience was refusing to pay taxes and he wrote an essay protesting the Mexican-American war, because he did not support slavery or the Mexican-American war. He then was taken to jail for one day (Mott). Being put in jail didn’t slow him down. After he went to jail he started giving excellent speeches. These speeches gained him even more followers (Henry, Venus). After the speeches he decides he hasn’t done enough, so he wrote an essay called “Civil Disobedience” (Thoreau). It was his biggest and best act of civil disobedience (Internet). In his essay he describes slavery as unjust (Thoreau). His essay is very excellent written and is one of the best in history to be written. One of Henry David Thoreau’s best quotes was “ I quietly declare war with the state…” Thoreau said (Thoreau). What the quote means is that he was so upset with his government that he did not trust them any more. He felt like the only thing that could fix it was the thing he hated most, war. He was one of the best and most well know civil disobedience protesters in history. Thoreau was a nonviolent protestor (Mott). Meaning that he never harmed nobody or vandalized state property. Another one of his quotes

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