"On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thoreau Henry David)

much time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other
affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly
to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it,
be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but
something; and because he cannot do everything, it is
not necessary that he should be petitioning the Governor
or the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me;
and if they should not hear my petition, what should I do then?
But in this case the State has provided no way: its very
Constitution is the evil. This may seem to be harsh and
stubborn and unconcilliatory; but it is to treat with the
utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can
appreciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better,
like birth and death, which convulse the body.

I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves
Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw
their 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