Summary

In July, 1846, reclusive writer and amateur botanist Henry David Thoreau was arrested in Concord, Massachusetts, for failure to pay the poll tax for the past several years. Thoreau was released the next day after his aunt paid bail. Thoreau later explained to an audience at the Concord Lyceum that he felt it was just not to pay a tax to a country that tolerated slavery and had engaged in war with Mexico. Press notes that Thoreau, while he refused to pay a poll tax because of slavery, did not say in his speech that slavery must be ended. This is later noted by writer Hannah Arendt, who used the event to distinguish between a “good man” and a “good citizen,” wherein a good man is preoccupied with his own moral purity, and a good citizen will become involved in the world...