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

1849

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

by Henry David Thoreau

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs
least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and
systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I
believe- "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when
men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which
they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most
governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes,
inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing
army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also
at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is
only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which
is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will,
is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act
through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively
a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for,
in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.

This American government- what is it but a tradition, though a
recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity,
but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality
and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to
his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But
it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some
complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea
of government which they have. Governments show thus how
successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for
their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this
government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the
alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the
country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The
character inherent in the American people has done all that has been
accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the
government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an
expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another
alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the
governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were
not made of india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the
obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and,
if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their
actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be
classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put
obstructions on the railroads.

But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call