In addition to criticizing the government of the United States as unjust, Thoreau also argues that it is inefficient, serving as a hindrance to “trade and commerce” rather than an aid. In the course of his argument about governmental “inexpedience,” he uses a metaphor that compares commerce to rubber:
For government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions, and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.
The government is most efficient or “expedient,” he claims, when those whom it governs are “most let alone by it.” Rather than enabling trade, the government is for Thoreau an “obstacle” to commerce. If trade and commerce “were not made of India rubber,” he claims, they “would never manage to bounce over” the obstructive legislation imposed by the state. Thoreau’s metaphor imagines the national economy as something like a rubber ball which is able to stay up in the air despite what he considers to be government meddling.
Thoreau uses a metaphor that compares the American government to a “wooden gun.” Arguing that the government has no power other than the power imbued in it by the will of its citizens, he writes:
It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves; and, if ever they should use it in earnest as a real one against each other, it will surely split. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on.
Though the government of the United States might seem too large and powerful to be opposed by an individual, Thoreau insists that any “single living man can bend it to his will,” as the state has no will of its own. Using a metaphor, Thoreau writes that the government is “a sort of wooden gun.” Though it might appear to be powerful, it cannot be used against the people or it “will surely split,” just as a gun made entirely of wood would not be able to fire a bullet without falling apart.
