ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
百度搜索 Walden 天涯 或 Walden 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.
I heartily accept the motto, -- "That gover is best whichgover"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly
and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which
also I believe, -- "That gover is best which governs not at
all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of
gover which they will have. Gover is at best but an
expedient; but most govers are usually, and all govers are
sometimes, inexpedient. The objes which have been brought
against a standing army, and they are many ay, and deserve
to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing
gover. The standing army is only an arm of the standing
gover. The gover itself, which is only the mode which the
people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be
abused and perverted before the people act through it. Witness
the present Mexi war, the work of paratively a few individuals
using the standing gover as their tool; for, iset, the
people would not have seo this measure.
This Ameri gover -- what is it but a tradition, though a
ret one, endeav to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity,
but eastant losing some of its iy? It has not the
vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man bend
it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people
themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the
people must have some plicated maery or other, and hear its
din, to satisfy that idea of gover which they have.
Govers show thus how successfully men be imposed on, even
impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we
must all allow. Yet this gover never of itself furthered any
enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.
It does not keep the try free. It does not settle the West. It
does not educate. The character i in the Ameri people has
done all that has been aplished; and it would have done somewhat
more, if the gover had not sometimes got in its way. For
gover is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in
letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most
expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and
erce, if they were not made of India rubber, would never manage
to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are tinually
putting in their way; and, if oo judge these men wholly by
the effects of their as, and not partly by their iions,
they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous
persons who put obstrus on the railroads.
But, to speak practically and as a citizen, uhose who
call themselves no-gover men, I ask for, not at ono
gover, but at once a better gover. Let every man make
known what kind of gover would and his respect, and that
will be oep toward obtaining it.
After all, the practical reason why, when the power is on
the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long
period tio rule, is not because they are most likely to be
in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but
because they are physically the stro. But a gover in
which the majority rule in all cases ot be based on justice,
even as far as men uand it. there not be a gover in
which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but
sce? -- in which m<tt></tt>ajorities decide only those questions to
which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever
for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his sce to the
legislator? Why has every man a sce, then? I think that we
should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to
cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. 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
sce; but a corporation of stious men is a corporation
with a sce. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by
means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made
the agents of injustice. A on and natural result of an undue
respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, el,
captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marg in
admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills,
ay, against their on sense and sces, which makes it very
steep marg indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.
They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are
ed; they are all peaceably ined. Now, what are they?
Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of
some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy Yard, and behold a
marine, such a man as an Ameri gover make, or such as it
make a man with its black arts -- a mere shadow and reminisce
of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one
may say, buried under arms with funeral apas, though it
may be
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
Oer the grave where our hero we buried."
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as
maes, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the
militia, jailers, stables, posse itatus, etc. In most cases
there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral
sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood ah and
stones; and wooden men perhaps be manufactured that will serve
the purpose as well. Suand no more respect than men of straw
or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses
and dogs. Yet such as these even are oeemed good
citizens. Others, as most legislators, politis, lawyers,
ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their
heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distins, they are as
likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very
few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and
men, serve the state with their sces also, and so necessarily
resist it for the most part; and they are only treated as
enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will
not submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind away,"
but leave that office to his dust at least:--
"I am too high-born to be propertied,
To be a sedary at trol,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sn state throughout the world."
He who gives himself eo his fellow-men appears to them
useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is
pronounced a beor and philanthropist.
How does it bee a man to behave toward this Ameri
govero-day? I ahat he ot without disgrace be
associated with it. I ot for an instant reize that
political anization as my gover which is the slaves
gover also.
All men reize the right of revolution; that is, the right to
refuse allegiao, and to resist, the gover, when its
tyranny or its inefficy are great and unendurable. But almost
all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they
think, in the Revolution of 75. If oo tell me that this
was a bad gover because it taxed certain fn odities
brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an
ado about it, for I do without them. All maes have their
fri; and possibly this does enough good to terbalahe
evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But
when the fri es to have its mae, and oppression and
robbery are anized, I say, let us not have such a mae any
longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation
which has uaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a
whole try is unjustly overrun and quered by a fn army,
and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for
ho men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the
more urgent is the fact that the try so overrun is not our own,
but ours is the invading army.
Paley, a on authority with many on moral questions, in his
chapter on the "Duty of Submission to Civil Gover," resolves
all civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say that
"so long as the i of the whole society requires it, that is,
so long as the established gover ot be resisted or ged
without publiveniency, it is the will of God... that the
established gover be obeyed, and no longer.... This principle
being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance
is reduced to a putation of the quantity of the danger and
grievan the one side, and of the probability and expense of
redressing it oher." Of this, he says, every man shall
judge for himself. But Paley appears o have plated
those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which
a people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it
may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must
restore it to him though I drown myself. This, acc to Paley,
would be inve. But he that would save his life, in such a
case, shall lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to
make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.
In their practiations agree with Paley; but does any one
think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present
crisis?
"A drab of state, a cloth-o-silver slut,
To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the dirt."
Practically speaking, the oppos to a reform in Massachusetts are
not a huhousand politis at the South, but a hundred
thousand merts and farmers here, who are more ied in
erd agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not
prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may.
I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home,
co-operate with, and do the bidding of those far away, and without
whom the latter would be harmless. We are aced to say, that
the mass of men are unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the
few are not materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so
important that many should be as good as you, as that there be some
absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.
There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the
war, who yet in effect do nothing to put ao them; who,
esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down
with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what
to do, and do nothing; who even postpohe question of freedom to
the question of free-trade, and quietly read the prices-current
along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may
be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an
ho man and patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and
sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in ear and with
effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the
evil, that they may no longer have it tret. At most, they give
only a cheap vote, and a feeble tenand Godspeed, to the
right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and y-nine
patrons of virtue to one virtuous man; but it is easier to deal
with the real possessor of a thing than with the tempuardian
of it.
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon,
with a slight moral tio it, a playing with right and wrong,
with moral questions; aing naturally apa. The
character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perce,
as I think right; but I am not vitally ed that that right
should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its
obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even
voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing
to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will
not leave the right to the mercy of or wish it to prevail
through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in
the a of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote
for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are
indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left
to be abolished by their vote. They will thehe only slaves.
Only his vote hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his
own freedom by his vote.
I hear of a vention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere,
for the sele of a didate for the Presidency, made up chiefly
of editors, and men olitis by profession; but I think,
what is it to any indepe, intelligent, and respectable man what
decision they may e to? Shall we not have the advantage of his
wisdom and hoy, heless? we not t upon some
indepe votes? Are there not many individuals in the try
who do not attend ventions? But no: I find that the respectable
man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and
despairs of his try, when his try has more reason to despair
of him. He forthwith adopts one of the didates thus selected as
the only available ohus proving that he is himself available
for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth
than that of any unprincipled fner or hireling native, who may
have been bought. Oh for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor
says, has a bone in his back which you ot pass your hand
through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been
returoe. How many mehere to a square thousand
miles in this try? Hardly one. Does not America offer any
i for men to settle here? The Ameri has dwindled into
an Odd Fellow -- one who may be known by the development of his
an ariousness, and a ma lack of intelled
cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief , on ing
into the world, is to see that the almshouses are in good repair;
and, before yet he has lawfully dohe virile garb, to collect a
fund fo<var></var>r the support of the widows and orphans that may be; who, in
short veo live only by the aid of the Mutual Insurance
pany, which has promised to bury him detly.
It is not a mans duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself
to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may
still properly have other s to engage him; but it is his
duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no
thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote
myself to other pursuits and plations, I must first see, at
least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another mans
shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his
plations too. See what gross insistency is tolerated. I
have heard some of my townsmen say, "I should like to have them
order me out to help put down an insurre of the slaves, or to
marexico; -- see if I would go"; ahese very men have
each, directly by their allegiance, and so ily, at least, by
their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who
refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to
sustain the unjust gover which makes the war; is applauded by
those whose own ad authority he disregards as at naught;
as if the state were peo that degree that it hired oo
sce it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off
sinning for a moment. Thus, uhe name of Order and Civil
Gover, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our
own meanness. After the first blush of sin es its indifference;
and from immoral it bees, as it were, unmoral, and not quite
unnecessary to that life which we have made.
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most
disied virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which
the virtue of patriotism is only liable, the noble are most
likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove of the character
and measures of a gover, yield to it their allegiand
support are undoubtedly its most stious supporters, and so
frequently the most serious obstacles to reform. Some are
petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the
requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it
themselves -- the unioween themselves and the State -- and
refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in
the same relation to the State, that the State does to the Union?
And have not the same reasons prevehe State from resisting the
Union, which have prevehem from resisting the State?
How a maisfied to eain an opinion merely, and
enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he
is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your
neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are
cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with
petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at
oo obtain the full amount, ahat you are never cheated
again. A from principle -- the perception and the performance
ht -- ges things aions; it is essentially
revolutionary, and does not sist wholly with anything which was.
It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it
divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the
divine.
Unjust laws exist; shall we be tent to obey them, or shall we
endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or
shall we trahem at once? Men generally, under such a
gover as this, think that they ought to wait until they have
persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they
should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is
the fault of the gover itself that the remedy is worse than the
evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and
provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why
does it cry a before it is hurt? Why does it not ence
its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do
better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ,
and exunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington
and Franklin rebels?
One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its
authority was the only offenever plated by gover;
else, why has it not assigs defis suitable and
proportionate, penalty? If a man who has no property refuses but
oo earn nine shillings for the State, he is put in prison for a
period unlimited by any law that I know, aermined only by the
discretion of those who placed him there; but if he should steal
imes nine shillings from the State, he is sooted to
go at large again.
If the injustice is part of the necessary fri of the
mae of gover, let it go, let it go; perce it will wear
smooth -- certainly the mae will wear out. If the injustice has
a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a k, exclusively for
itself, then perhaps you may sider whether the remedy will not be
worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires
you to be the agent of injustice to ahen, I say, break the
law. Let your life be a ter fri to stop the mae. What
I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to
the wrong which I n.
As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for
remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much
time, and a mans life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend
to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place
to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not
everything to do, but something; and because he ot do
everything, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong.
It is not my busio be petitioning the Governor or the
Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they
should not hear my petition, what should I do then? But in this
case the State has provided no way; its very stitution is the
evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unciliatory;
but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and sideration the
only spirit that appreciate or deserves it. So is an ge for
the better, like birth ah which vulse the body.
I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves
Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support,
both in person and property, from the gover of Massachusetts,
and not wait till they stitute a majority of one, before they
suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough
if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one.
Moreover, any man mht than his neighbors stitutes a
majority of one already.
I meet this Ameri gover, or its representative, the
State gover, directly, and face to face, once a year -- no more
-- in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which
a man situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says
distinctly, Reize me; and the simplest, the most effectual, and,
in the present posture of affairs, the indispensablest mode of
treating with it on this head, of expressing your little
satisfa with and love for it, is to deny it then. My civil
neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with --
for it is, after all, with men and not with part that I quarrel
-- and he has voluntarily chosen to be a of the gover.
How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an officer of the
gover, or as a man, until he is obliged to sider whether he
shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor
and well-disposed man, or as a maniad disturber of the peace,
and see if he get over this obstru to his neighborliness
without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding
with his a? I know this well, that if ohousand, if one
hundred, if ten men whom I could name -- if ten ho men only --
ay, if one HO man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to
hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and
be locked up in the ty jail therefor, it would be the abolition
of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the beginning
may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. But we love
better to talk about it: that we say is our mission. Reform keeps
many scores of neers in its service, but not one man. If my
esteemed neighbor, the States ambassador, who will devote his days
to the settlement of the question of human rights in the cil
Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of Carolina,
were to sit down the prisoner of Massachusetts, that State which is
so anxious to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister -- though at
present she discover only an act of inhospitality to be the
ground of a quarrel with her -- the Legislature would not wholly
waive the subject the following winter.
Under a gover which imprisons any unjustly, the true place
for a just man is also a prison. The proper place to-day, the only
place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less
desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out
of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out
by their principles. It is there that the fugitive slave, and the
Mexi prisoner on parole, and the Indian e to plead the wrongs
of his race, should find them; on that separate, but more free and
honorable ground, where the State places those who are not with
her, but against her -- the only house in a slave State in which a
free man abide with honor. If any think that their influence
would be lost there, and their voio longer afflict the ear of
the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they
do not know by how much truth is strohan error, nor how much
more eloquently and effectively he bat injustice who has
experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a
strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is
powerless while it s to the majority; it is not even a
minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole
weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or
give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to
choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this
year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be
to pay them, and ehe State to it violend shed
i blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable
revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any
other public officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I
do?" my answer is, "If you really wish to do anything, resign your
office." When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer
has resigned his office, then the revolution is aplished. But
even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed
when the sce is wounded? Through this wound a mans real
manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting
death. I see this blood flowing now.
I have plated the impriso of the offender, rather
than the seizure of his goods -- though both will serve the same
purpose -- because they who assert the purest right, and
sequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, only have
not spent much time in accumulating property. To such the State
renders paratively small service, and a slight tax is wont to
appear exorbitant, particularly if they are obliged to earn it by
special labor with their hands. If there were one who lived wholly
without the use of mohe State itself would hesitate to demand
it of him. But the rich man -- not to make any invidious parison
-- is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.
Absolutely speaking, the more mohe less virtue; for money
es between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and
it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many
questions which he would otherwise be taxed to answer; while the
only new question which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how
to spend it. Thus his mround is taken from under his feet.
The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are
called the "means" are increased. The best thing a man do for
his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those
schemes which he eained when he oor. Christ answered the
Herodians acc to their dition. "Show me the
tribute-money," said he; -- and oook a penny out of his pocket;
-- if you use money which has the image of Caesar on it, and which
he has made current and valuable, that is, if you are men of the
State, and gladly enjoy the advantages of Caesars gover, then
pay him bae of his own when he demands it; "Reherefore
to Caesar that which is Caesars, and to God those things which are
Gods" -- leaving them no wiser than before as to which was which;
for they did not wish to know.
When I verse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive
that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of
the question, and their regard for the public tranquillity, the long
and the short of the matter is, that they ot spare the
prote of the existing gover, and they dread the
sequeo their property and families of disobedieo it.
For my own part, I should not like to think that I ever rely on the
prote of the State. But, if I deny the authority of the State
when it presents its tax-bill, it will soon take and waste all my
property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is
hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live holy, and at
the same time fortably in outward respects. It will not be worth
the while to accumulate property; that would be sure to go again.
You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and
eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and depend upon
yourself always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many
affairs. A man may grow ri Turkey even, if he will be in all
respects a good subject of the Turkish gover. fucius said,
"If a state is governed by the principles of reason, poverty and
misery are subjects of shame; if a state is not governed by the
principles of reason, riches and honors are the subjects of shame."
No: until I want the prote of Massachusetts to be exteo
me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or
until I am bent solely on building up ae at home by peaceful
enterprise, I afford to refuse allegiao Massachusetts, and
her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense
to incur the penalty of disobedieo the State than it would to
obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.
Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and
anded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman
whose preag my father attended, but never I myself. "Pay," it
said, "or be locked up in the jail." I deed to pay. But,
unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the
saster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the
priest the saster: for I was not the States saster, but
I supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the
lyceum should not present its tax-bill, and have the State to back
its demand, as well as the Church. However, at the request of the
sele, I desded to make some such statement as this in
writing:-- "Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau,
do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society
which I have not joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he has
it. The State, having thus learhat I did not wish to be
regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand on
me sihough it said that it must adhere to its inal
presumption that time. If I had known how to hem, I should
then have signed off iail from all the societies which I never
signed on to; but I did not know where to find a plete list.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I ut into a jail
on this at, for one night; and, as I stood sidering the
walls of solid stowo or three feet thick, the door of wood and
iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which straihe light, I
could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution
which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and boo be
locked up. I wohat it should have cluded at length that
this was the best use it could put me to, and had hought to
avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a
wall of stoween me and my towhere was a still more
difficult oo climb or break through, before they could get to be
as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel fined, and the
walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I
alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know
how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In
every threat and in every pliment there was a blunder; for they
thought that my c..f desire was to stand the other side of that
stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they
locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again
without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was
dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish
my body; just as boys, if they ot e at some person against
whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State
was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver
spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I
lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.
Thus the State never iionally fronts a mans sense,
intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not
armed with superior wit or hoy, but with superior physical
strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own
fashion. Let us see who is the stro. What force has a
multitude? They only force me who obey a higher law than I.
They force me to bee like themselves. I do not hear of men being
forced to have this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life
were that to live? When I meet a gover which says to me, "Your
money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?
It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I ot help
that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while
to snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful w
of the maery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I
perceive that, when an a and a chestnut fall side by side, the
one does not remaio make way for the other, but both obey
their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they ,
till one, perce, overshadows aroys the other. If a plant
ot live acc to its nature, it dies; and so a man.
The night in prison was novel and iing enough. The
prisoners in their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the
evening air in the doorway, wheered. But the jailer said,
"e, boys, it is time to lock up"; and so they dispersed, and I
heard the sound of their steps returning into the holloartments.
My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer as "a first-rate
fellow and a clever man." When the door was locked, he showed me
where to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms
were whitewashed once a month; and this o least, was the
whitest, most simply furnished, and probably the apartment
iown. He naturally wao know where I came from, and
what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I asked him in my
turn how he came there, presuming him to be an ho man, of
course; and, as the woes, I believe he was. "Why," said he,
"they accuse me of burning a barn; but I never did it." As near as
I could discover, he had probably goo bed in a barn when drunk,
and smoked his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the
reputation of being a clever man, had been there some three months
waiting for his trial to e on, and would have to wait as much
longer; but he was quite domesticated and tented, since he got
his board for nothing, and thought that he was well treated.
He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that if one
stayed there long, his principal business would be to look out the
window. I had soon read all the tracts that were left there, and
examined where former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate
had been sawed off, and heard the history of the various octs
of that room; for I found that evehere was a history and a
gossip whiever circulated beyond the walls of the jail.
Probably this is the only house iown where verses are
posed, which are afterrinted in a circular form, but not
published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which were
posed by some young men who had beeed in an attempt to
escape, who avehemselves by singing them.
I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should
never see him again; but at length he showed me which was my bed,
a me to blow out the lamp.
It was like travelling into a far try, such as I had never
expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me
that I never had heard the town-clock strike before, nor the evening
sounds of the village; for we slept with the windows open, which
were ihe grating. It was to see my native village in the
light of the Middle Ages, and our cord was turned into a Rhine
stream, and visions of knights and castles passed before me. They
were the voices of old burghers that I heard ireets. I was
an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said
i of the adjat village-inn -- a wholly new and rare
experieo me. It was a closer view of my native town. I was
fairly inside of it. I never had seen its institutions before.
This is one of its peculiar institutions; for it is a shire town. I
began to prehend what its inhabitants were about.
In the m, our breakfasts were put through the hole in the
door, in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and holding a
pint of chocolate, with brown bread, and an iron spoon. When they
called for the vessels again, I was green enough to return what
bread I had left; but my rade seized it, and said that I should
lay that up for lunch or dinner. Soon after he was let out to work
at haying in a neighb field, whither he went every day, and
would not be back till noon; so he bade me good-day, saying that he
doubted if he should see me again.
When I came out of prison -- for some oerfered, and paid
that tax -- I did not perceive that great ges had taken pla
the on, such as he observed who went in a youth and emerged a
t and gray-headed man; a a ge had to my eyes e
over the se -- the town, and State, and try -- greater than
any that mere time could effect. I saw yet more distinctly the
State in which I lived. I saw to what extent the people among whom
I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their
friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly
propose to dht; that they were a distinct race from me by their
prejudices and superstitions, as the amen and Malays are; that
in their sacrifices to humanity, they ran no risks, not even to
their property; that after all they were not so they
treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain
outward observand a few prayers, and by walking in a particular
straight though useless path from time to time, to save their souls.
This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe that many
of them are not aware that they have su institution as the jail
in their village.
It was formerly the in our village, when a poor debtor
came out of jail, for his acquaintao salute him, looking
through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the grating
of a jail window, "How do ye do?" My neighbors did not thus salute
me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as if I had
returned from a long journey. I ut into jail as I was going to
the shoemakers to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out
the m, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put
on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to
put themselves under my duct; and in half an hour -- for the
horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field,
on one of hest hills, two miles off, and theate was
o be seen.
This is the whole history of "My Prisons."
I have never deed paying the highway tax, because I am as
desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject;
and as for supp schools, I am doing my part to educate my
fellow-trymen now. It is for no particular item iax-bill
that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiao the
State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not
care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a
man or a musket to shoot oh -- the dollar is i -- but I
am ed to trace the effey allegiance. In fact, I
quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will
still make what use a what advantage of her I , as is usual
in such cases.
If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy
with the State, they do but what they have already done in their own
case, or rather they abet injustice to a greater extent than the
State requires. If they pay the tax from a mistaken i in the
individual taxed, to save his property, or prevent his going to
jail, it is because they have not sidered wisely how far they let
their private feelings interfere with the public good.
This, then, is my position at present. But one ot be too
mu his guard in such a case, lest his a be biased by
obstinacy or an undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him see
that he does only what belongs to himself and to the hour.
I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well; they are only
ignorant; they would do better if they knehy give your
neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not ined to? But I
think, again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or
permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind.
Again, I sometimes say to myself, When many millions of men, without
heat, without ill-will, without personal feeling of any kind, demand
of you a few shillings only, without the possibility, such is their
stitution, of retrag or altering their present demand, and
without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other
millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute force? You
do not resist cold and huhe winds and the waves, thus
obstinately; you quietly submit to a thousand similar ies.
You do not put your head into the fire. But just in proportion as I
regard this as not wholly a brute force, but partly a human force,
and sider that I have relations to those millions as to so many
millions of men, and not of mere brute or inanimate things, I see
that appeal is possible, first and instantaneously, from them to the
Maker of them, and, sedly, from them to themselves. But, if I
put my head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire
or to the Maker of fire, and I have only myself to blame. If I
could vince myself that I have any right to be satisfied with men
as they are, and to treat them accly, and not acc, in
some respects, to my requisitions and expectations of what they and
I ought to be, then, like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should
endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the
will of God. And, above all, there is this differeween
resisting this and a purely brute or natural force, that I
resist this with some effect; but I ot expect, like Orpheus, to
ge the nature of the rocks and trees as.
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish
to split hairs, to make fine distins, or set myself up as
better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse
for f>?</a> to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to
to them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on this
head; and each year, as the tax-gatherer es round, I find myself
disposed to review the acts and position of the general and State
ity.
"We must affect our try as our parents,
And if at any time we alienate
Our love or industry from doing it honor,
We must respect effects and teach the soul
Matter of sd religion,
And not desire of rule or be."
I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my work
of this sort out of my hands, and then I shall be er a
patriot than my fellow-trymen. Seen from a lower point of view,
the stitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the
courts are very respectable; even this State and this Ameri
gover are, in many respects, very admirable and rare things,
to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; but
seen from a point of view a little higher, they are what I have
described them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall
say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of
at all?
However, the gover does not me much, and I shall
bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments
that I live under a gover, even in this world. If a man is
thought-free, fancy-free, imaginatiohat which is not never
for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers
ot fatally interrupt him.
I know that most men think differently from myself; but those
whose lives are by professioed to the study of these or
kindred subjects, tent me as little as any. Statesmen and
legislators, standing so pletely within the institution, never
distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but
have ing-place without it. They may be men of a certain
experiend discrimination, and have no doubt ied ingenious
and even useful systems, for which we sihank them; but all
their wit and usefulness lie withiain not very wide limits.
They are wont tet that the world is not governed by polid
expediency. Webster never goes behind gover, and so ot
speak with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those
legislators who plate no essential reform in the existing
gover; but for thinkers, and those who legislate for all time,
he never once gla the subject. I know of those whose serene
and wise speculations on this theme would soon reveal the limits of
his minds range and hospitality. Yet, pared with the cheap
professions of most reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom and
eloquence of politis in general, his are almost the only
sensible and valuable words, ahank Heaven for him.
paratively, he is always strong, inal, and, above all,
practical. Still, his quality is not wisdom, but prudehe
lawyers truth is not truth, but sistency or a sistent
expediency. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not
ed chiefly to reveal the justice that may sist with
wrong-doing. He well deserves to be called, as he has been called,
the Defender of the stitution. There are really no blows to be
given by him but defensive ones. He is not a leader, but a
follower. His leaders are the men of 87. "I have never made an
effort," he says, "and never propose to make an effort; I have never
tenanced an effort, and never mean to tenan effort, to
disturb the arra as inally made, by which the various
States came into the Union." Still thinking of the san which
the stitution gives to slavery, he says, "Because it art
of the inal pact -- let it stand." Notwithstanding his
special aess and ability, he is uo take a fact out of
its merely political relations, and behold it as it lies absolutely
to be disposed of by the intellect -- what, for insta
behooves a man to do here in America to-day with regard to slavery,
but ventures, or is driven, to make some such desperate answer as
the following, while professing to speak absolutely, and as a
private man -- from which what new and singular code of social
duties might be inferred? "The manner," says he, "in which the
govers of those States where slavery exists are tulate it
is for their own sideration, uheir responsibility to their
stituents, to the general laws of propriety, humanity, and
justice, and to God. Associations formed elsewhere, springing from
a feeling of humanity, or any other cause, have nothing whatever to
do with it. They have never received any encement from me, and
they never will."
They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up
its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the
stitution, and drink at it there with reverend humility; but
they who behold where it es trig into this lake or that
pool, gird up their loins once more, and tiheir pilgrimage
toward its fountain-head.
No man with a genius fislation has appeared in America.
They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators,
politis, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has
not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the
much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own
sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it
may inspire. islators have not yet learhe parative
value of free-trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a
nation. They have no genius or talent for paratively humble
questions of taxation and finance, erd manufacturers and
agriculture. If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators
in gress for uidance, uncorrected by the seasonable
experiend the effectual plaints of the people, America would
not loain her rank among the nations. Fhteen hundred
years, though perce I have nht to say it, the estament
has been writte where is the legislator who has wisdom and
practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds
on the sce of legislation?
The authority of gover, even such as I am willing to submit
to -- for I will cheerfully obey those who know and do better
than I, and in many things even those who her know nor do so
well -- is still an impure oo be strictly just, it must have
the san and sent of the governed. It have no pure right
over my person and property but what I cede to it. The progress
from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a
democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.
Even the ese philosopher was wise enough tard the
individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we
know it, the last improvement possible in gover? Is it not
possible to take a step further towards reizing and anizing
the rights of man? There will never be a really free and
enlighteate until the State es the individual
as a higher and indepe power, from which all its own power and
authority are derived, and treats him accly. I please myself
with imagining a State at least which afford to be just to all
men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which
even would not think it insistent 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.
百度搜索 Walden 天涯 或 Walden 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.