CGI-PathRequest

 view release on metacpan or  search on metacpan

t/public_html/demo/civil.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever
know well what he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a
man, until he is obliged to consider whether he shall treat me, his
neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed
man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can
get over this obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and
more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action. I know
this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I
could name- if ten honest men only- ay, if one HONEST man, in this
State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to
withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the county
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 newspapers in its
service, but not one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the State's
ambassador, who will devote his days to the settlement of the question
of human rights in the Council 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 can 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 government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place
for a just man is also a prison. The proper place today, 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 Mexican
prisoner on parole, and the Indian come 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 can abide with honor. If any think that their influence would
be lost there, and their voices no 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 stronger than error, nor how much more

t/public_html/demo/civil.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

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, at 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 incorporated society
which I have not joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he has

t/public_html/demo/civil.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

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 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 me 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 not 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,

t/public_html/demo/civil.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

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 its nature, it dies; and so a man.

  The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The
prisoners in their shirt-sleeves 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 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 one, at least, was the whitest,
most simply furnished, and probably the neatest apartment in the 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 man, 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