Civil Disobedience - Part 1 through to 3 by Thoreau Reader

           For me this article by  thoreau criticizes American social institutions and policies, most prominently slavery and the Mexican-American Thoreau's Civil Disobedience espouses the need to prioritize one's conscience over the dictates of laws.
           Thoreau began by arguing that governments rarely proves itself useful to the people and that it derives its power from the majority because they are the strongest group, not because they hold the most legitimate viewpoints. He contended that people's first obligation as citizens is to do what they believe is right and not to follow the law dictated by the majority. When a particular government is unjust, people should refuse to heed to the laws and distance themselves from the government in general. A person is not obligated to devote his life to eliminating evils from the world, but he is obligated not to participate in such evils. This includes not being a member of an unjust institutions. Thoreau further argues that the United States fits his criteria for an unjust government, given its support of slavery and its practice of aggressive war.
           He doubt the effectiveness of reform within the government and argues that voting and petitioning for change achieves only a little. He presented his own experiences as a model for how to relate to an unjust government: In protest of slavery, Thoreau refused to pay taxes and spent a night in jail. But, more generally, he ideologically dissociated himself from the government, "washing his hands" of it and refusing to participate in his institutions. According to him this form of protest was preferable to advocating for reform from within government he asserted that one cannot see government for what it is when one is working within it.