"Thoreau - Civil Disobedience" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thoreau Henry David)

One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its
authority was the only offence never contemplated by government; else,
why has it not assigned its definite, its suitable and
proportionate, penalty? If a man who has no property refuses but
once to earn nine shillings for the State, he is put in prison for a
period unlimited by any law that I know, and determined only by the
discretion of those who placed him there; but if he should steal
ninety times nine shillings from the State, he is soon permitted to go
at large again.
If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of
government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear
smooth- certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a
spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself,
then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse
than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to
be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have
to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong
which I condemn.
As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for
remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much
time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend
to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to
live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not
everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do
everything, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong.
It is not my business to be petitioning the Governor or the
Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they
should not bear my petition, what should I do then? But in this case
the State has provided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. This
may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconciliatory; but it is to
treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit
that can appreciate or deserves it. So is an change for the better,
like birth and death, which convulse the body.
I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves
Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support,
both in person and property, from the government of Massachusetts, and
not wait till they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer
the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they
have God on their side, without waiting for that other one.
Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority
of one already.
I meet this American government, or its representative, the State
government, directly, and face to face, once a year- no more- in the
person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man
situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly,
Recognize me; and the simplest, the most effectual, and, in the
present posture of affairs, the indispensablest mode of treating
with it on this head, of expressing your little satisfaction with
and love for it, is to deny it then. My civil neighbor, the