In order to persuade the reader to stop passively tolerating injustice from the government, Thoreau skillfully wields pathos, appealing in particular to the emotions of sympathy and outrage. His language is particularly impassioned when describing institutions that he considers to be unjust, such as slavery and the prison system. Addressing the question of his own imprisonment for refusing to pay taxes which, he feels, fund these injustices, Thoreau writes:
I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well; they are only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think, again, this is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind.
Thoreau acknowledges that it was perhaps un-neighborly of him to break the law, forcing a member of his own community to arrest and imprison him. He even concedes that it must have been painful for this individual to treat a neighbor “as they are not inclined to.” Nevertheless, Thoreau insists that neither he, nor the jailer, are the true victims in the situation. Instead, he insists that the reader must think of “others” who “suffer much greater pain of a different kind.” Here, using emotionally charged language, Thoreau asks the reader to consider the pain and suffering of both those who are enslaved in the American South, as well as the casualties of the Mexican-American War.
