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Article: Civil Disobedience
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
denotes the public, and usually nonviolent, defiance of a law that an individual or group believes unjust, and the willingness to bear the consequences of breaking that law. In 1846, to demonstrate opposition to the government's countenance of slavery and its war against Mexico, Henry David Thoreau engaged in civil disobedience by refusing to pay a poll tax. One may interpret Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849) as an explanation of his nonpayment of the tax, an expression of an individual's moral objection to state policies, and as a civic deed undertaken by a concerned citizen acting to reform the state. The essay became popularized ...