On the Duty of Civil Disobedience | Page 6

support, both in person and
property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they
constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail
through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side,
without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than
his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.
I meet this American government, or its representative, the State
government, directly, and face to face, once a year--no more--in the
person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man situated
as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly, Recognize me;
and the simplest, the most effectual, and, in the present posture of
affairs, the indispensablest mode of treating with it on this head, of
expressing your little satisfaction with and love for it, is to deny it then.
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.
How shall he ever know well that he is and does as an officer of the
government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he will
treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and
well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if
he can get over this obstruction to his neighborlines without a ruder and
more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action. I
know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I
could name--if ten honest men only--ay, if one HONEST man, in this
State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to
withdraw from this co-partnership, and be locked up in the county jail
therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it matters
not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is
done forever. But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our
mission. Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service, but
not one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the State's ambassador, who
will devote his days to the settlement of the question of human rights in
the Council Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of
Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner of Massachusetts, that State
which is so anxious to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister--though at
present she can discover only an act of inhospitality to be the ground of
a quarrel with her--the Legislature would not wholly waive the subject
of the following winter.
Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just
man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which
Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less despondent spirits, is
in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act,
as they have already put themselves out by their principles. It is there
that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the
Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race should find them; on that
separate but more free and honorable ground, where the State places
those who are not with her, but against her--the only house in a slave
State in which a free man can abide with honor. If any think that their
influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear
of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they
do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much

more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has
experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip
of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless
while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is
irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to
keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will
not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their
tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it
would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and
shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable
revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other
public officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I do?" my
answer is, "If you really wish to do anything,