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Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience: Historical Figures Of Social Reform

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Henry David Thoreau was an author whose transcendental philosophies functioned as an inspirational guidance to paramount historical figures of social reform. Thoreau vehemently bolstered civil liberties and advocated for peaceful demonstration in the essay Civil Disobedience. The idiom “civil disobedience” was established by Thoreau in 1848 as, “a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies” (Brownlee). Thoreau, resisting governmental domination, declined to remunerate a poll tax as a protest against what he deemed to be an unmerited war with Mexico by a governmental design to expand slave territory. He was arrested and had a one night stint in jail before …show more content…

Liberty precisely translates to freedom nevertheless in the present day, just as in Thoreau’s time, through regulations and taxes the government hegemonies Americans, purloining their autonomy with dictating laws and delegating individual comportment. Society aspires to dictate their own capital investments and suffer alienation by the power of immense government who more than ever emerges to enforce taxation without representation. Freedom is the national identity predominantly venerated by Americans. Thoreau’s main theme within the ideology of freedom is a reduction of government. Throughout history, acts of civil disobedience have memorably forced a reexamination of society's ethical strictures. Modern endeavors of civil disobedience uncover the nature of Thoreau's philosophy, that individuals cannot be indolent to their conscience while injustice against freedom is rampant. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. exemplars national ideologies of freedom and draws analogously to Thoreau’s own disobedience. King who similarly occupied a night in jail for participating in a peaceable civil rights demonstration, wrote a letter paralleling several thoughts of Thoreau, “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest

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