1. In March 1845, the United States elected a new president, James K.

Polk, an ambitious
political outsider interested in establishing its dominance over other world powers, mainly
Mexico and the United Kingdom. He was also a supporter of slavery. Polk was a popular
president, adored by many for his attitude, yet a significant part of the people hated him very
much. One of Polk's passionate opponents was the writer Henry David Thoreau.

2. Thoreau rapidly understood he was opposed to everything Polk stood for: he despised
what became the Mexican-American War, was suspicious of Polk's dispute with Britain, and was
horrified by the administration's strategy of tracking down and returning escaped slaves to their
masters in the South.

Thoreau's rage at his President was expressed in an essay he published in 1849, now

known as Civil Disobedience. The essay's central question is what an honest person should do
about a president that he or she strongly opposes.

3. Thoreau withheld payment of his taxes to demonstrate his opposition. He was caught
and imprisoned in the municipal jail in July 1846. He wrote... Thoreau's point was that he wanted
to move away from blind obedience, toward independent thought. In Thoreau's opinion, what
characterizes a great citizen of the republic, a true American, is not that they politely shut up, but
that they think for themselves every day of the administration of their life.

4. The nonpayment was simply one of many nonviolent methods in which a

democratically elected government may be challenged when its activities become aggressive and
unjustified. An election may determine who the president is, but it does not mean that everything
the president does is correct or that one should do nothing until the next election. Above all,
Thoreau hated political passivity. Thoreau suggested that citizens should never just give up their
morality to the legislation and that they shouldn't place themselves at the service of any
unscrupulous man in authority.  It is often said that a decent citizen's job is to swallow their
objections and just obey the decision of the majority. And this was exactly the point that Thoreau
wished to question in "Civil Disobedience". He claimed that the real patriots were not people
who blindly supported their government, they were those who followed their own consciousness,
especially the principle of reason that requires everything to have a reason or a cause, and
Thoreau understood exactly whom he should serve: namely his own intellect and morals.
This is not against governments  it’s against a government that does not longer represents you

(doesn’t serve your moral beliefs): “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”

We have to obey the government, but once the government makes you do things that oppose

your moral beliefs, then you can rebel against it.

Transcendentalism transcribes the world as it should be, not as it is.

We always delegate responsibility and this is the best kind of freedom (that’s the alternative for

democracy). Delegating power doesn’t mean loss of freedom.

Thoreau decided to let him be imprisoned rather than giving up his morals.

We should question everything and never take things for granted.

“Civil” has a double meaning (nesupunere civica/ nesupunere civilizata). They both work

because the kind of disobedience that Thoreau is illustrating is civil, nonviolent and he does

oppose to using force.

”I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto — "That government is best which governs least"; and I

should like 1 to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically”  he is saying that he

accepts the idea that government is best. A government is the one who doesn’t interfere with

your life, is all about maintaining infrastructure, maintaining the law, etc. It should not interfere

with anyone’s business.

“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”  the key to transcendentalism. He also states that men are not prepared for it, if

they were, they should all be transcendental. We will no longer need rules and regulations.

“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”  he is not an anarchist,

he just wants that government to be better and to represent us and our values more closely.

“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”  Individuals would do better after their own advices

because they have a consciousness. Associations are fine as long as you keep on acting as a man

with a conscious. It starts from the bottom toward the top.

“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”  this is sth. to thrive

for, but it’s not there yet. Transcendentalism sets a goal, a standard, it doesn’t describe the real

world.