Civil Disobedience

In Section II, Thoreau notes that men have a recognized and cherished right of revolution. Still, Thoreau has a dismissive attitude toward some of the grievances that have sparked revolts in the past, such as the 1775 protest against tax on foreign goods. From his perspective, slavery outweighs all other causes for revolution both in magnitude and moral gravity. As he points out, one sixth of the population in the United States lives in servitude. A man disgraces himself by associating with a government that treats even some of its citizens unjustly, even if he is not the direct victim of its injustice. Thoreau takes issue with William Paley, an English theologian and philosopher, who argues that any movement of resistance to government must balance the enormity of the grievance to be redressed and the "probability and expense" of redressing it.