Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience"
Major Themes
Civil Government and Higher Law. In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau's basic premise is that a higher law than civil law demands the obedience of the individual. Human law and government are subordinate. In cases where the two are at odds with one another, the individual must follow his conscience and, if necessary, disregard human law.
Thoreau prepared his lecture and essay on resistance to civil government in response to a specific event?the Mexican War, which was declared in May of 1846, and which was expected to result in the expansion of slave territory. He was not particularly inclined to devote much thought to political theory and reform. He writes in Civil Disobedience:
. . . the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live under a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free [free in his thinking], fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.
The search for understanding of universal laws forms the proper use of a man's time, energy, and intellect. Thoreau writes dismissively of conscious reform: "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." However, circumstances make it impossible to live life as usual without damage to morality and conscience:
It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thoug ...