Free Essay On Henry David Thoreau Resistance To Civil Government

The essay “Resistance to Civil Government” was penned by Henry David Thoreau in 1849, in which he wrote of a new and radical idea that suggested that the moral compass of man should be able to question law, rather than the other way around. He believed that even if people cannot take part in preventing injustice, they should at least not take part in causing injustice. According to him, while it would be moral to even be imprisoned if it helps prevent injustice, but that it was not mandatory for people to do so. Thoreau believed that all that can be asked of people is that they do not dirty their own hand with injustice and beyond that they are free to decide for themselves what to do with their life. Thoreau did not believe in anarchy or the absence of a government, he just believed in a more just one. He presented the argument that it was the duty of a just man to refuse to support a government that is not willing to improve itself.
Like Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King Jr. also believed that people should disobey authority when there is social injustice. Just like the duty and responsibility of people to protest against a government’s corrupt laws, King also conveyed to the people that they should not tolerate the laws of the government against African Americans and that they should use civil disobedience as an instrument of freedom. However, Thoreau’s essay was a portrayal of his own feelings rather than the attempt to start a movement, and so it lacked urgency. It was Martin Luther King Jr. who made Thoreau’s ideas more tangle by writing “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” He took Thoreau’s concept of civil disobedience and used it to fabricate a vehicle that he could use to really bring a change in the rule of law. Indeed, Henry David Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government” laid the foundation that influenced many activists and leaders, but King went a step forward by adding to Thoreau’s ideas and creating a mass movement.