Civil Disobedience

an iron spoon.  When they called for the vessels again,
I was green enough to return what bread I had left, but my
comrade seized it, and said that I should lay that up for
lunch or dinner.  Soon after he was let out to work at
haying in a neighboring field, whither he went every day,
and would not be back till noon; so he bade me good day,
saying that he doubted if he should see me again.

When I came out of prison--for some one interfered, and
paid that tax--I did not perceive that great changes had
taken place on the common, such as he observed who went in a
youth and emerged a gray-headed man; and yet a change had
come to my eyes come over the scene--the town, and State,
and country, greater than any that mere time could effect.
I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived.  I saw
to what extent the people among whom I lived could be
trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship
was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly
propose to do right; that they were a distinct race from me
by their prejudices and superstitions, as the Chinamen and
Malays are; that in their sacrifices to humanity they ran no
risks, not even to their property; that after all they were
not so noble but they treated the thief as he had treated
them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few
prayers, and by walking in a particular straight though
useless path from time to time, to save their souls.
This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe
that many of them are not aware that they have such an
institution as the jail in their village.

It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor
debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute
him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to
represent the jail window, "How do ye do?" My neighbors did
not thus salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one
another, as if I had returned from a long journey.  I was
put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a
shoe which was mended.  When I was let out the next morning,
I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my
mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient
to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour--for
the horse was soon tackled--was in the midst of a
huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles
off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.

This is the whole history of "My Prisons."

I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I
am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a
bad subject; and as for supporting schools, I am doing my
part to educate my fellow countrymen now.  It is for no
particular item in the tax bill that I refuse to pay it.  I
simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw
and stand aloof from it effectually.  I do not care to trace
the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a 
musket to shoot one with--the dollar is innocent--but I am
concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance.  In fact, I
quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though
I will still make use and get what advantages of her I can,
as is usual in such cases.

If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a
sympathy with the State, they do but what they have already
done in their own case, or rather they abet injustice to a
greater extent than the State requires.  If they pay the tax
from a mistaken interest in the individual taxed, to save
his property, or prevent his going to jail, it is because
they have not considered wisely how far they let their
private feelings interfere with the public good.

This, then, is my position at present.  But one cannot be too
much on his guard in such a case, lest his actions be biased
by obstinacy or an undue regard for the opinions of men.
Let him see that he does only what belongs to himself and
to the hour.

I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are
only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how:  why
give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not
inclined to?  But I think again, This is no reason why I
should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much
greater pain of a different kind.  Again, I sometimes say to
myself, When many millions of men, without heat, without ill
will, without personal feelings of any kind, demand of you a
few shillings only, without the possibility, such is their
constitution, of retracting or altering their present
demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal
to any other millions, why expose yourself to this
overwhelming brute force?  You do not resist cold and
hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately; you
quietly submit to a thousand similar necessities.  You do
not put your head into the fire.  But just in proportion as
I regard this as not wholly a brute force, but partly a
human force, and consider that I have relations to those
millions as to so many millions of men, and not of mere
brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal is possible,
first and instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them,
and, secondly, from them to themselves.  But if I put my
head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire
or to the Maker of fire, and I have only myself to blame.