Question

Who was Henry David Thoreau and why did he care about James Polk? What did he do about him? How does this tie into Transcendentalism?

Answer 1

Henry David Thoreau was a writer from the United States in the period of Transcendentalism. He cared about James Polk because James Polk was the president at the time and supported westward expansion which included the war against Mexico. He also hated Polk since Polk was a slave-owner even during his presidency, and Thoreau opposed slavery.

He wrote his famous work Civil Disobedience which talked harshly about slavery and about the Mexican-American war and it was widely read at the time since Thoreau was popular. He also held speeches and attended rallies to oppose government imperialist policies and spreading westward and similar things.

It ties into transcendentalism because he belonged to the movement and as such he claimed that the individual is important and that no government has the right to override someone's desire to be independent and act according to their conscience and to be free from the way that the government is corrupting people.