Thinking about his Civil Disobedience/On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1849. Because of this, it is "not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize". 'I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.' - Henry David Thoreau. The government, according to Thoreau, is not just a little corrupt or unjust in the course of doing its otherwise-important work, but in fact the government is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice. Law never made men a whit more just and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice." He adds, "I cannot for an instant recognize as my government which is the slave's government also." The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to. The judgment of an individual's conscience is not necessarily inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so ". Democracy is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice. Thoreau asserts that because governments are typically more harmful than helpful, they therefore cannot be justified. 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience' Summary
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