henry david thoreau and civil disobedience

Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. 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. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. 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.

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. 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.

The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. 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. Government is at best but an expedient but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

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. 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.

Henry david thoreau and civil disobedience