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1When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and
2seriousness of the question, and their regard for the public tranquillity, the long and the short of the matter is, that
3they cannot spare the protection of the existing government, and they dread the consequences of disobedience to it to
4their property and families. For my own part, I should not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of the
5State. But, if I deny the authority of the State when it presents its tax-bill, it will soon take and waste all my
6property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live
7honestly and at the same time comfortably in outward respects. It will not be worth the while to accumulate property;
8that would be sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You
9must live within yourself, and depend upon yourself, always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs.
10A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government. Confucius
11said,--"If a State is governed by the principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame; if a State is not
12governed by the principles of reason, riches and honors are the subjects of shame." No: until I want the protection of
13Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent
14solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and
15her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State,
16than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case. Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of
17the church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching my father attended,
18but never I myself. "Pay it," it said, "or be locked up in the jail." I declined to pay. But, unfortunately, another man
19saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the
20schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see
21why the lyceum should not present its tax-bill, and have the State to back its demand, as well as the church. However,
22at the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in writing:--"Know all men by these
23presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not
24joined." This I gave to the town-clerk; and he has it. The State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded
25as a member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original
26presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off in detail from all the societies
27which I never signed on to; but I did not know where to find such a complete list. I have paid no poll-tax for six
28years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone,
29two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could
30not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and
31bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me
32to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between
33me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free
34as I was. I did nor for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I
35alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are
36underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to
37stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my
38meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As
39they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against
40whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with
41her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and
42pitied it. Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his
43senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced.
44I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me
45who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live this
46way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, "Your
47money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do:
48I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not responsible
49for the successful working of the machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn
50and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws,
51and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant
52cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man. The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The
53prisoners in their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the door-way, when I entered. But the
54jailer said, "Come, boys, it is time to lock up;" and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps returning
55into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer as "a first-rate fellow and a clever man."
56When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were
57whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably the neatest
58apartment in town. He naturally wanted to know where I came from, and what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I
59asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to be an honest man, of course; and, as the world goes, I believe
60he was. "Why," said he, "they accuse me of burning a barn; but I never did it." As near as I could discover, he had
61probably gone to bed in a barn when drunk, and smoked his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of
62being a clever man, had been there some three months waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as much
63longer; but he was quite domesticated and contented, since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was well
64treated.
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