When I
converse 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 cannot
spare the
protection of the existing government,
and they dread the
consequences to their property and
families of
disobedience to it. For my own part, I should
not like to think that I ever rely on the protection 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
honestly, and at the same time comfortably, 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 rich in
Turkey even, if
he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish
government.
Confucius 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 subjects of shame." No: until
I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me
in some distant Southern port, where my
liberty is
endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an
estate at home by
peaceful enterprise, I can afford to
refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my
property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur
the penalty of disobedience to 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 commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the
support of a clergyman whose preaching my father attended,
but never I myself. "Pay," it said, "or be locked up in the
jail." I declined to pay. But, unfortunately, another man
saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the schoolmaster
should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest
the schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster,
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, as the request of the selectmen, I condescended 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 society which I have not joined."
This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it. The State,
having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded
as a member of that church, has never made a like
demand on me since; though it said that it must adhere to
its original presumption that time. If I had known how to
name them, I should then have signed off in detail from all
the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know
where to find such a complete list.
I have paid no poll tax for six years. I was put into
a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood
considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet
thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron
grating which strained the light, I could not help being
struck with the foolishness of that institution which
treated my as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to
be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at
length that this was the best use it could put me to, and
had never thought to avail itself of my services in some
way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me
and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to
climb or break through before they could get to be as free
as I was. I did nor for a moment feel confined, 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 compliment
there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief 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 cannot come 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 intentionally confronts a man's
sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses.
It is not armed with superior with or honesty, 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
strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force
me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become
like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live
this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were
that to live? When I meet a government which says to me,
"Your money our 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 cannot 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 working of the machinery of
society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive
that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the
one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but
both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish
as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and
destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to
nature, it dies; and so a man.
The night in prison was novel and interesting enough.
The prisoners in their shirtsleeves were enjoying a chat and
the evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the
jailer said, "Come, boys, it is time to lock up"; and so
they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps
returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was
introduced to me by the jailer as "a first-rate fellow and
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 one, at least, was
the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably neatest
apartment in town. He naturally wanted to 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 honest an, of course; and as the world goes, 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 gone to 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 come on, and would have to wait as
much longer; but he was quite domesticated and contented,
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 occupants of that room; for I
found that even there there was a history and a gossip which
never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably
this is the only house in the town where verses are
composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form,
but not published. I was shown quite a long list of young
men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who
avenged themselves 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, and left me to blow out the lamp.
It was like travelling into a far country, 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, not the evening sounds of the village; for we slept
with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It
was to see my native village in the light of the Middle
Ages, and our Concord 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 in the streets. I
was an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was
done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village inn--a
wholly new and rare experience to 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 comprehend
what its inhabitants were about.
In the morning, 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
comrade 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 neighboring 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 one interfered, and
paid that tax--I did not perceive that great changes had
taken place on the common, such as he observed who went in a
youth and emerged a gray-headed man; and yet a change had
come to my eyes come over the scene--the town, and State,
and country, 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 do right; that they were a distinct race from me
by their prejudices and superstitions, as the Chinamen 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 noble but they treated the thief as he had treated
them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few
prayers, and by walking in a particular straight through
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 such an
institution as the jail in their village.
It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor
debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute
him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to
represent the jail window, "How do ye do?" My neighbors did
not this salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one
another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I was
put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a
shoe which was mender. When I was let out the next morning,
I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my
mended show, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient
to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour--for
the horse was soon tackled--was in the midst of a
huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles
off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
This is the whole history of "My Prisons."
I have never declined 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 supporting schools, I am doing my
part to educate my fellow countrymen now. It is for no
particular item in the tax bill that I refuse to pay it. I
simply wish to refuse allegiance to 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 a
musket to shoot one with--the dollar is innocent--but I am
concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance. In fact, I
quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though
I will still make use and get what advantages of her I can,
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 interest in the individual taxed, to save
his property, or prevent his going to jail, it is because
they have not considered wisely how far they let their
private feelings interfere with the public good.
This, then is my position at present. But one cannot be too
much on his guard in such a case, lest his actions 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 knew how: why
give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not
inclined 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 feelings of any kind, demand of you a
few shillings only, without the possibility, such is their
constitution, of retracting 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
hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately; you
quietly submit to a thousand similar necessities. 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 consider 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, secondly, from them to themselves. But if I put my
head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire
or to the Maker for fire, and I have only myself to blame.
If I could convince myself that I have any right to be
satisfied with men as they are, and to treat them
accordingly, and not according, 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
difference between resisting this and a purely brute or
natural force, that I can resist this with some effect; but
I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change the nature of the
rocks and trees and beasts.
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do
not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set
myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may
say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land.
I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed, I have
reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the
tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to review
the acts and position of the general and State governments,
and the spirit of the people to discover a pretext for conformity.
"We must affect our country as our parents,
And if at any time we alienate
Out love or industry from doing it honor,
We must respect effects and teach the soul
Matter of conscience and religion,
And not desire of rule or benefit."
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 no
better patriot than my fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower
point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is
very good; the law and the courts are very respectable; even
this State and this American government are, in many
respects, very admirable, and rare things, to be thankful
for, such as a great many 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 government does not concern me much, and I shall
bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many
moments that I live under a government, even in this world.
If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free,
that which is not never for a long time appearing to be
to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.
I know that most men think differently from myself; but
those whose lives are by profession devoted to the study of
these or kindred subjects content me as little as any.
Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the
institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it.
They speak of moving society, but have no resting-place
without it. They may be men of a certain experience and
discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and
even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them;
but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very
wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not
governed by policy and expediency. Webster never goes behind
government, and so cannot speak with authority about it.
His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no
essential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers,
and those who legislate for all tim, he never once glances
at the subject. I know of those whose serene and wise
speculations on this theme would soon reveal the limits
of his mind's range and hospitality. Yet, compared with
the cheap professions of most reformers, and the still
cheaper wisdom an eloquence of politicians in general,
his are almost the only sensible and valuable words,
and we thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, he is always
strong, original, and, above all, practical. Still, his
quality is not wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer's truth
is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.
Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not
concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist
with wrong-doing. He well deserves to be called, as he has
been called, the Defender of the Constitution. There are
really no blows to be given 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 countenanced an
effort, and never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb
the arrangement as originally made, by which various States
came into the Union." Still thinking of the sanction which
the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, "Because it was
part of the original compact--let it stand."
Notwithstanding his special acuteness and ability, he is
unable to 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 instance, it behooves a man to do here
in American today with regard to slavery--but ventures, or
is driven, to make some such desperate answer to the
following, while professing to speak absolutely, and as a
private man--from which what new and singular of social
duties might be inferred? "The manner," says he, "in which
the governments of the States where slavery exists are to
regulate it is for their own consideration, under the
responsibility to their constituents, 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 encouragement from me and they never
will. {These extracts have been inserted since the lecture
was read -HDT}
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 Constitution, and drink at it there with
reverence and humanity; but they who behold where it comes
trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins
once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its
fountainhead.
No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America.
They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators,
politicians, 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 t may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our
legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of
free trade and of freed, of union, and of rectitude, to a
nation. They have no genius or talent for comparatively
humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and
manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to the
wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance,
uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual
complaints of the people, America would not long retain her
rank among the nations. For eighteen hundred years, though
perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has
been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and
practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which
it sheds on the science of legislation.
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, and in many things even those who
neither know nor can do so well--is still an impure one: to
be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of
the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and
property but what I concede 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 Chinese philosopher was wise enough to
regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a
democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible
in government? Is it not possible to take a step further
towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There
will never be a really free and enlightened State until the
State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and
independent power, from which all its own power and
authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please
myself with imagining a State at last 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 I have also imagined, but not yet
anywhere seen.