Thoreau treat the relation between government and individual in his essay

In the Essay “Civil Disobedience” Thoreau appears as a social rebel and a critic of American government and society of his time. ‘Civil Disobedience’ established his reputation in the wider political world. Thoreau’s political theories were not well known during his own time. They were usually presented as lectures to small audiences or as articles. In 1849, Civil Disobedience was published under the title “Resistance to Civil Government”. It is one of the most influential political tracts ever written by an American.

          This essay mainly deals with the relation between the citizen and the state. It also tells about the nature of the Government, state and the individual. The essay opens with a paradoxical view. According to Thoreau ‘That government is best which governs the least’. That means Thoreau is in famous of the absolute freedom of the individual citizen of a state. This absolute freedom should be the basis of an ideal from of democracy. Then the government will not interfere with the activities of the citizens as long as those activities will not clash with the interest of the members of the society.

          According to Thoreau, the government of his day did not come close to this ideal for two basic reasons: slavery and the Mexican-American war. It is important to remember that, although Thoreau’s imprisonment was a protest against slavery, Civil Disobedience was written after the outbreak of the Mexican- American war and protests both slavery and war.

          Civil Disobedience is an analysis of the individual’s relationship to the state that focuses on why men obey governmental law even when they believed it to be unjust. But Civil Disobedience is not an essay of abstract theory. It is Thoreau’s extremely personal response to being imprisoned for breaking the law. He was arrested for not paying the taxes. One of his aunts paid the taxes and he was released from the jail the next morning. This one nights experience led him to write his most famous essay on “Civil Disobedience”.

          According to Thoreau, conscience should be the guiding force of government or law. He gives the highest importance to conscience and the least importance to the majority. His whole concept of civil disobedience is based on the dictates of conscience. The human beings possess this conscience, not the animals. Since a state consists of human beings, the conscience should be the guiding force, not majority. Thoreau thinks that the majority in a so-called democratic state is permitted to rule for long, not because they are most likely to be in the right, but because they are physically the strongest. Thoreau says that conscience makes an individual strong and self-reliant. This God gifted conscience should decide what is just and what unjust, not brute majority. That is why a man is a man first and secondly a citizen of state.

Thoreau further says that the masses of men serve the state, not mainly as men, but as machines. They all constitute the army, police, militia, jailors etc. we see soldiers marching to wars, against their will and conscience. They do not exercise judgment or moral sense. Yet they are regarded as good citizens. But those who serve the state with conscience are commonly treated as enemies.

          Thus, Thoreau has considered the relation between the state and the individual at different levels, and has convincingly shown that individual, and individual conscience should be the basis of a good state.