Resistance to Civil Government by Henry David Thoreau Essay

Resistance to Civil Government by Henry David Thoreau - Essay Example With a personality that strongly opposes all that which he thinks is wrong, HDT is described as a naturalist or environmentalist, transcendentalist, a pacifist and a tax resister (wikipedia, 2006). It is particularly interesting to note his being a tax resister but not an evader for at length, he argued in his essay why he refused to become a part, to say the least, of a government which he dislikes, or abhor. He also narrated his imprisonment for resisting to pay his tax. For HDT proposes a government with conscience by allowing it, like a non-conscientious corporation to have men in it with conscience. For conscience, as he described, is inherent to all individuals and that individuals must not "resign his conscience to the legislator." HDT bashes the government of his time for "It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to will," meaning that only a handful from an overwhelming majority of citizens control the government like it was their own. He proposes a government with officials or those beholden to it to follow a righteous conscience, of which when exposed to war, and the soldiers and all ranking officers does not will to go and kill or be killed, "peaceably inclined" as he wrote, must not engage in war.