Harriman Beepat

Prof. B Murdaco

POL 166

November 12^th 2013

Assignment (Due 11/12): Choose one passage from Thoreau write out the passage and interpret them and explain why you chose them.

“I HEARTILY accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,—“That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”

          Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience or Resistance to Civil Government,” was initially written to express disagreement with resisting the institution of slavery, the bad treatment of Mexico by the United States, standing up to the government if necessary, the evils of government, and about the importance of non-conformity. Thoreau used the beginning of his essay to make the claim that government should be minimized. He further points out that government is as likely “to be mistreated” as it is to be a mechanism of change, and it should therefore have a reduced role in society, if any at all. I choose the opening paragraph of “Civil Disobedience,” to more or less draw attention to the way that the United States government fails to take care of its most vulnerable people. A perfect example is the Affordable Care Act. This federal program mandates everyone who does not have health insurance, to purchase policies by a set date, and if this is not done, they will be fined. To me this is just another example of too much government, and I fail to see how this is the government’s idea of taking care of its citizens.

 Go to the link for African-American Odyssey and under the section Abolition choose two topics from part 1 and part 2, research these topics, and summarize them and explain how they relate to the readings by Thoreau.

Part: 1...Popularizing Anti-Slavery Sentiment… Slave Stealer Branded
Massachusetts sea captain Jonathan Walker, born in 1790, was apprehended off the coast of Florida for attempting to carry slaves who were members of his church denomination to freedom in the Bahamas in 1844. He was jailed for more than a year and branded with the letters "S.S." for slave stealer. The abolitionist poet John Greenleaf Whittier immortalized Walker's deed in this often reprinted verse: "Then lift that manly right hand, bold ploughman of the wave! Its branded palm shall prophesy, 'Salvation to the Slave!'"	John G. Whittier. "The Branded Hand." Philadelphia, ca. 1845. Leaflet. Rare Book and Special Collections Division. (3-15)

           After his release from jail, Walker’s supporters in the north celebrated his freedom. He, like Thoreau, an abolitionist, wrote about the evils of slavery and the hypocrisy of the United States government in their support of this most despicable act. Walker and the former slaves would recount their harrowing experiences, before audiences for the sake of raising concern, and funds in the north for the abolitionist cause.

Part: 2… Militant Abolition… John Brown's Raid

John Brown. Address of John Brown . . . Sentence of Death; For his heroic attempt at Harpers Ferry. . . . Boston: C.C. Mead. Broadside. Rare Book and Special Collections Division. (3-6)	More than twenty years after the militant abolitionist John Brown had consecrated his life to the destruction of slavery, his crusade ended in October 1859 with his ill-fated attempt to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in western Virginia. He hoped to take the weapons from the arsenal and arm the slaves, who would then overthrow their masters and establish a free state for themselves. Convicted of treason and sentenced to death, Brown maintained to the end that he intended only to free the slaves, not to incite insurrection. His zeal, courage, and willingness to die for the slaves made him a martyr and a bellwether of the violence soon to consume the country during the Civil War.

         An abolitionist just like Henry Thoreau and Captain Jonathan Walker, John Brown tried unsuccessfully to incite the slaves and fellow abolitionist in Harpers Ferry to take up arms and revolt. Thoreau wrote a plea of leniency for Captain John Brown,  weeks after John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and repeated several times before Brown’s execution on December 2, 1859.