On the Duty of Civil Disobedience | Page 8

support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster; for I
was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported myself by voluntary
subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its tax bill,
and have the State to back its demand, as well as the Church. However,
as the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such
statement as this in writing: "Know all men by these presents, that I,
Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any society
which I have not joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it.
The State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded as a
member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since;
though it said that it must adhere to its original presumption that time.
If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off in
detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not
know where to find such a complete list.
I have paid no poll tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this
account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid
stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick,
and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being
struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated my as if I
were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that
it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put
me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way.
I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen,
there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before
they could get to be as free as I was. I did nor for a moment feel
confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt
as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not
know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In
every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they
thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone
wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the

door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or
hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could
not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they
cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse
his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone
woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from
its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.
Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual
or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior
with or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to
be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the
strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who
obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I
do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of
men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government
which says to me, "Your money our your life," why should I be in haste
to give it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to
do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the
while to snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working
of the machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive
that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not
remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws,
and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance,
overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to
nature, it dies; and so a man.
The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in
their shirtsleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the
doorway, when I entered. But the jailer