ABSTRACT
Civil Disobedience, one of Henry David Thoreau’s rare political texts, asks whether a nation’s citizens sometimes have a moral duty to disobey its laws. Civil Disobedience makes the case for morality, self-reliance, nonconformity, and nonviolent resistance to political authority. Thoreau published several works, but Civil Disobedience was his most influential political piece, one based on his life experiences. Thoreau lived his entire life in Massachusetts, which, in 1780, was one of the first American states to abolish slavery. Thoreau’s argument is that every conscientious citizen has a moral duty to oppose and even break unjust laws, refusing allegiance to a state that requires the individual to become an “agent of injustice.” His essay received little attention at the time of its publication, but it was a challenge to existing theories of government and allegiance, and it established an alternative approach that has become highly influential and increasingly relevant over time in academic circles and beyond.
