On the Duty of Civil DisobedienceIn a concise essay, Thoreau challenges all men, "not to cultivate respect for law, so much as for right." Over and over, almost redundantly, Thoreau emphasizes simplicity and individualism, as most Transcendentalists (the new philosophical and literary movement of Thoreau's time) did. Thoreau clearly states, in his On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, that the government is unjust and does not represent the will of the people, that one man cannot change the government, and that the people unconsciously succumb to the will of the government. . The first of these is a ridiculous idea; the second alternately contradicted and argued throughout the essay so that one cannot be sure what they agree or disagree with while reading because he always contradicts himself in the next paragraph; and the last, a well-thought-out and legitimate concept. Thoreau believed that “the best government is that which governs least” (222), but his harsh feelings stemmed from his dislike of the government and its motives at the time. He thought everything the administration did was wrong: the turn toward the treatment of slaves, the land-grabbing war with Mexico, and the taxes that Thoreau himself was jailed for refusing to pay. Even the basic government system was unfair and biased towards him. He thought the majoritarian system was unjust, "...when power is in the hands of the people, the majority is permitted...to govern, not because it is more likely to be right, nor because this seems fairer to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest,” (231) but what else can there be in a non-monarchical government? It brings down the entire American governor… middle of paper… is a deeply admirable position civil is an opinionated but sincere treatise on the effectiveness and presumed power of the United States. The three main points proposed in this speech vary in sensitivity from the tangible to the intangible some, uninteresting and exasperating because in many parts of his essay Thoreau, through digressions and descriptions, many times unintentionally contradicts himself. For this reason, he is considered by many to be a great philosopher and considered a hypocrite, and one must look deeply to discover the true meaning behind his big words and complex sentences. Works Cited by Henry David Thoreau - "Civil Disobedience" from A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Readers, Lee A. Jacobus, Bedford Books, 2008, 1849