Henry David Thoreau/Resistance to Civil Government Journal

Tanya Barragan
Scott Lankford
English 48A
Henry David Thoreau
10/27/11

Henry David Thoreau
10/27/11

AUTHOR’ QUOTE

“My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with,-for it is, after all with men and not with parchment that I quarrel,-and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government’.” (1864)

INTERNET QUOTE

“Precipitated by boundary disputes between the United States and Mexico, the war was ultimately fought in order to expand American territory--many Americans felt it was our "Manifest Destiny" to seize all the land we could--and as a result the United States gained much of the present American Southwest, including California, Nevada and Utah. Thoreau and other opponents of the war argued that the campaign constituted an unnecessary act of aggression and that it was pursued on the basis of arrogance rather than any philosophically justifiable reasons.”

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/civildisobedience/context.html

SUMMARY

Resistance to Civil Government, by Henry David Thoreau, is all about what is going on with the government and the people that choose to follow it and the people that don’t. Thoreau describes it as a way of living and why people follow it. He also explains, who is in charge and those who want to be apart of it, have to follow the rules of the government. But he says that it is the ones at the bottom who suffer and the ones who choose to rebel against it, are the ones who pay for it in the end. Thoreau explains it is throw control and power.

YOUR IDEAS/REACTIONS/RESPONSES TO THE AUTHOR’S IDEAS

I got a few ideas from Thoreau’s words and was intrigued by the way he saw how the government was ruled. I think from his point, he saw it as the devil and it was ruled by the power of men and it was not at all ruled in a civil way. I also felt that he was against it, and wanted people to see how the government is full of power but not in a good way. I reacted to Thoreau’s words as a way of thinking about what goes on in the government and men who follow it and the way it rules our country. I also saw that he feels that it is man that he is saying his feeling to, as they are the ones creating the problems. I also saw this feeling that the government was using its power in an aggressive way that seemed to be very controlling. Seeing this, I was getting a feeling that may have been something he was going through and seeing in the world, that he was living in at the time. I couldn’t help feeling that his words were something of meaning of life, and his life at the time was ruled by the government and men were the followers. I think that the Author wanted us to see what was going in our world; especially with what was going in with Mexico and how people were treated and how people’s lives were taken away. But I saw that he was saying that our country, our government, was the gain of this and was using its power to run the country, I was very interested in what he had to say, because he seemed to really be against the government. What is funny, even though this is what he was feeling and what he was seeing in the world he was living in; times may have changed but things with the government are still the same now.