The Causes of Thoreau’s Call Against the Government

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The Causes of Thoreau’s Call Against the Government
Henry David Thoreau wrote Civil Disobedience in 1849 as a call to arms against the government. The text argues that people should take a stand against their governments, and not permit their governments to overrule them or stop what they want to do in life. Thoreau was a prominent writer and transcendentalist who was angry at the things that were happening in America: for example, the slavery and the Mexican-American war. Still, Thoreau explains many causes that the American government has gotten to the point of being rotten. In the text Civil Disobedience, Thoreau says he thinks the government turned out badly because of many causes, namely people meddling in it and the fact that it...

..... may still properly have other concerns 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” (Thoreau 183). Thoreau says that we should not be content to obey the unjust laws, and to not persuade the majority to change them. This is gradual. In actuality, an individual should participate in their own reform and do better as individuals to create a trend. Thoreau had high hopes for the government, and through the exploration of the causes of the government being bad can help people further understand how to change it, and also understand Thoreau’s aims. Henry David Thoreau states the causes of the government being bad in his work Civil Disobedience.