Henry David Thoreau Quotes
Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are NOT good?
Thoreau, Henry David. "A Plea for Captain John Brown." Echoes of Harper's Ferry, edited by James Redpath, Thayer and Eldridge, 1860, p. 30.
FULL QUOTE: “I have studied the law, and say again, I defy the united authorities of the earth to show where this people have not been loyal, wherein they have not proved loyal, in Germany, in France, in England, or in the United States; for they are the best people upon the face of the earth to observe the law and keep order. I want to live perfectly above the law, and make it my servant, instead of its being my master. That is the way to live; to be humble before God, and observe the laws; for there is no necessity of breaking the laws in America, in keeping the commandments of God. When the law is our master, the yoke is hard to bear; but when it is our servant, it works easy; whereas, if it be our master, we are continually compelled and driven by it.”
This article was published under the name of “A Lover Of Peace” but is generally attributed to Paine.
A delegation from Sinn Fein, headed by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, had negotiated a treaty of Irish Independence except that it did not cover Northern Ireland where the majority of the people wanted to stay a part of Britain. For 700 years, the Irish had fought for independence, and finally they got it for the vast majority of Ireland and the overwhelming majority of the Catholics of Ireland. The alternative to agreeing to the treaty was to continue the war between the IRA and the British Troops. At the time, the IRA was just about totally beaten and probably could not hold out another month. De Valera, a very shrewd politician, as the leader of Sinn Fein (and the IRA) would normally have headed the Irish Delegation. But he chose not to because he realized that they would never get independence for all 32 counties of Ireland as the British would not leave the Northern Ireland Protestants to their fates against their will. The best Ireland could get was Independence for all of Catholic majority Ireland. And he knew that public opinion would oppose giving up even one county becuse that was what the leaders had told the people for years. So De Valera let his two associates take the popular blame after he denounced the treaty with his famous quotation {639690}. Shortly after that, Michael Collins, the brilliant military Commander of the IRA who signed the treaty was assassinated. To many, it was as if De Valera had pulled the trigger. The treaty was ratified by a 7 vote margin by the Dail as there was no army left to fight, and the angry Irish electorate voted for De Valera as Ireland’s first President. The politician had won; the patriot had died. De Valera continued to speak out against the Dail Majority for the “immoral” act of ratifying the treaty
Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.
