At various points in Civil Disobedience, Thoreau satirizes those who refuse to act on their beliefs and ideals. Taking aim at individuals who oppose slavery but nevertheless remain obedient to a government that maintains slavery, he writes:
There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both [...] They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect.
Thoreau reserves his most biting satire for those who dutifully pay their taxes despite claiming to oppose institutions such as slavery that are funded by those taxes. “There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war,” he writes, but who nevertheless “in effect do nothing to put an end to them.” Here, Thoreau references the Mexican-American war, which was opposed by critics of slavery who feared that slavery would be established in territories gained from Mexico. These individuals, Thoreau mockingly claims, consider themselves “children of Washington and Franklin” for criticizing the government, yet unlike the American revolutionaries, they refuse to take action. While the founding fathers took arms against an oppressive government, Thoreau argues that his contemporaries merely “petition” the state for change.
