Resistance to Civil Government (Civil Disobedience) is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American War (1846–1848).
In 1848, Thoreau gave lectures at the Concord Lyceum entitled «The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government». This formed the basis for his essay, which was first published under the title Resistance to Civil Government in 1849 in an anthology called Æsthetic Papers. The latter title distinguished Thoreau’s program from that of the «non-resistants» (anarcho-pacifists) who were expressing similar views. Resistance also served as part of Thoreau’s metaphor comparing the government to a machine: when the machine was producing injustice, it was the duty of conscientious citizens to be «a counter friction» (i.e., a resistance) «to stop the machine».
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