Thoreau believed that the human conscience was sometimes to outweigh the law. In The Village, he writes about how he spent a night in jail for refusing to “pay taxes to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men.” He then goes on to say that, “it is true, I might have resisted forcibly, with more or less effect, might have run “amok” against society; but I preferred that society should run “amok” against me, it being the desperate party.” Thoreau, and Transcendentalism itself, suggested that the limitations of civil government could sometimes inhibit a person’s greater, moral freedom. Civil disobedience is a refusal to obey certain laws of a government or power, also known as nonviolent resistance. Many people believe that with nonviolent resistance, the voices of the smaller fish in the “pond of government” may be heard and make a difference (137).
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