by Henry David Thoreau
[1849, original title: Resistance to Civil Government]
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
upon, 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 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 mischievious persons who put obstructions on
the railroads.
But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike
those who call themselves no-government men, I ask
for, not at once no government, but at once
a better government. Let every man make known
what kind of government would command his respect,
and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
