Henry David Thoreau · Philosophy
Thoreau’s argument that a person’s first allegiance is to conscience, not to the law - that when the state commands injustice, the just individual must refuse, even at the cost of prison. Born from his own night in jail for refusing a tax that funded slavery and war.
You learned that Thoreau argued conscience outranks the law, that ‘that government is best which governs least,’ and that a just person under an unjust government belongs in prison - a case he made after refusing the poll tax over slavery and the Mexican War and spending a night in jail. Explain his argume…
Leads to Mohandas Gandhi.
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