The Value Of Civil Disobedience

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The Historical Value of Civil Disobedience
(An analysis of how Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau has impacted people through time.) Throughout time, history has been looked to help dictate the future. Past mistakes are brought up to avoid future ones, and often words of advice are recorded and quoted to help reason an argument. This has definitely been the case with Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau is credited as one of the three transcendentalist writers of America. Meaning his ideas were revolutionary for his time, and are still in common practice today. In Henry Thoreau’s text, Civil Disobedience, there are many reasons why this message of freedom transcends his own time to be influential to those throughout history. Thoreau, in his text Civil Disobedience, uses the idea of itemizing the government to help others overcome it. This text truly expresses Thoreau’s ideas as what a government should be and do for the people. One of these ideas is that government is only a resource and what people accomplish is of their own accord. Thoreau states, “It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished…” (pg. 389, line 8) …show more content…

“It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves; and, if ever they should use it in earnest as a real one against each other, it will surely split.” (pg. 388, line 22) Thoreau tries to explain that a government is no better than a wooden gun, an idea of something that doesn’t function as a real one should. Consequently, he explains that if people ever tried to use this ‘gun’ or government as it was intended, they would be sorely disappointed, because it is not the government that keeps a society running, but how the people in the society decide to govern themselves as

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