Reflection:"Civil Disobedience"

To even start to analyze the reasons why this writing is a transcendentalist writing, one would have to have a base understanding of exactly what transcendentalism actually is. Transcendentalism is a writing style of American literature that broke off of the romanticism movement. The writers in this sub-group were the ones who believed that while the physical world provides one with good experiences and an understanding of some things, the inner studies of a man’s intuition provides more important discoveries. Many of the ideas that the transcendentalists had came from the German thinker Immanuel Kant who said “what we know is not generated by experience but is inherent in us and transcends matter” (Barney 2). These thinkers were the ones that believed that true knowledge only comes from within and with a communion with nature.

From the beginning of this long essay, it is obvious where Thoreau stands on the issue of big government; using the quote “The government that governs best is the one that governs least” (Thoreau 1). Thoreau goes on to talk about how he thinks that the United States government is very inefficient and that just gets in the way of progress. Even thought he thinks that the government is not very good in its current state, that people “must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have,“ meaning that people have to have the knowledge that there is some kind of government, whether it is successful or not (Thoreau 2). He then goes on to argue that the government did not “keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate,” asserting his idea his idea that people are more important than the government that he reasons can be controlled by a single man, and therefore it is not trustworthy. One very indicative to transcendentalist writing is the quote “I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward” which exemplifies the transcendentalist idea of self-reliance. Another quote that shows Thoreau’s preference of self reliance is when he asks “Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator” (Thoreau 4). This quote also shows the idea that mental and moral reasoning is more important to making decisions than conventional reasoning is.

In the next section, Thoreau argues that people are petitioning the State government to break away from the Union, when they themselves can break their ties with the State government; reasoning that “ they stand in the same relation to the State, that the State does to the Union” (Thoreau 14). This is not just something that Thoreau is preaching, he practices it. The main reason that he wrote this essay was because he was jailed after not paying his poll tax in protest of the Mexican-American War and slavery (Wayne 1). He said that he could not call a government his if it is also a slaves government (Thoreau 7).

Then Thoreau gets into the part where the essay gets its name. He talks about how there are unjust laws that everybody recognizes are in the wrong. He states that if one believes a law to be against their morals they should “immediately transgress” the law (Thoreau 16). I particularly like the line “Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels” because it exemplifies the transcendentalist rejection of religion and the liking to thinkers whether they be rational or not, even though they prefer more philosophical ideals than rational (Thoreau 16).

"Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - 2." The Thoreau Reader. Web. 30 Jan. 2012.

Wayne, Tiffany K. "'Civil Disobedience'." Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Barney, Brett, and Lisa Paddock, eds. "Transcendentalism."Encyclopedia of American Literature: The Age of Romanticism and Realism, 1816–1895, vol. 2, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008.Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.