Civil Disobedience is an essay, and more specifically, a political essay concerning the relationship between an individual and their government. Like many writers before him, Thoreau turns to the nonfiction genre of the essay in order to explain and promote his political beliefs in a straightforward and persuasive manner. In the essay, he encourages his fellow American citizens to join him in peaceful acts of disobedience and resistance to the government, which he characterizes as tyrannical and inefficient. Central to his argument is the moral imperative to break laws that are in conflict with one’s own beliefs. Of “unjust laws,” Thoreau writes:
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse.
Restating one of his central arguments in the essay, Thoreau addresses the reader directly, asking whether or not an individual should “obey” an “unjust” law. For Thoreau, the legality of an action has no bearing upon whether it is moral or just. Therefore, he concludes that an individual has a moral obligation to disobey any law that contradicts their morals. Next, he argues that such laws should not only be disobeyed, but that they should be disobeyed “at once,” without waiting for the law to be amended. Throughout Civil Disobedience, Thoreau uses the argumentative techniques of the essay in order to promote his views and criticize naysayers.
