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Published originally in 1849 as "Resistance to Civil Government," Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" is an important landmark essay, Thoreau saying:
"Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree resign his conscience to the legislator?"
"The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right."
"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."
"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?"
The state "is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion....They can only force me who obey a higher law than I."
Slavery, America's Mexican War, and unjust government motivated Thoreau to argue that no one has a duty to surrender his (or her) conscience to injustice. One way is by refusing to pay taxes for imperial wars. Another is by disobeying unjust laws. They deserve no respect, he said, and should be broken.
Famed essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson agreed, believing, on moral grounds, that unjust laws should be resisted. His "Representative Men" essays and campaign against slavery expressed his philosophy. As a committed abolishionist, he wrote:
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