e beauty and importance of nature and his place in it, now as an abolitionist he would set out to write an antislavery, antiwar essay that would reach across the Atlantic and into the future.Thoreau’s night spent in a Concord jail opened his eyes to the “injustice” of America’s government. His complaint was that conscience not law should decide right from wrong. In 1849 Thoreau published “Resistance to Civil Government” which opens, “I heartily accept the motto, “That government is best which governs least.” He continues, “I believe that government is best which governs not at all.” He saw government as “but an expedient,” a means to an end. He understood it to be “the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will” and that it was not immune to abuse and perversion before that “will” was carried out. “This American government,” he says, “is but a tradition…It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished.” This is Transcendentalist Thoreau, claiming an “inherent” character in the American people to follow their destiny to be their own independent and free country. After all, it was the people who created the government and if this is true then the government could be changed. He goes on to ask for “a better government” one in which “the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience.” As far as the war with Mexico Thoreau describes soldiers marching in line “against their wills, against their common sense and consciences.” If the men cannot choose how to bring peace, “are they men at all? or small moveable forts…at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?” “The mas...
