![]() ![]() The incarceration may have been brief but it has had enduring effects through “Civil Disobedience.” ![]() Without his knowledge or consent, however, relatives settled the “debt” and a disgruntled Thoreau was released after only one night. He was supposed to remain in jail until a fine was paid which he also declined to pay. Thoreau declined to pay the tax and so, in July 1846, he was arrested and jailed. There were no income taxes and Thoreau did not own enough land to worry about property taxes but there was the hated poll tax – a capital tax levied equally on all adults within a community. Thoreau detested slavery and because tax revenues contributed to the support of it, Thoreau decided to become a tax rebel. It is Thoreau’s extremely personal response to being imprisoned for breaking the law. But “Civil Disobedience” is not an essay of abstract theory. “Civil Disobedience” is an analysis of the individual’s relationship to the state that focuses on why men obey governmental law even when they believe it to be unjust. “Resistance to Civil Government” or simply referred to as “Civil Disobedience” is an essay written by Thoreau and first published in 1849. Henry David Thoreau, born on July the 12 th, 1817 was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resistor, development critic, surveyor, historian and a leading transcendentalist. ![]()
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