Question

What was Henry David Thoreau’s purpose in writing “resistance to civil government”

Answer 1

C. To explain why citizens have a moral obligation to disobey laws the find unjust

Answer 2

The correct answer is C.

Henry David Thoreau’s purpose in writing “resistance to civil government” was to explain the need to prioritize one's conscience over the dictates of laws.

In his essay, Thoreau explains that governments are typically more harmful than helpful and therefore cannot be justified. According to him, this defect could not be fixed with democracy because being a majority does not imply having the best morals and ideas.

Because of this, Thoreau calls citizens to follow their own morals and distance themselves from unfair governments. He believed that people should not dedicate themselves to eliminating evil if they did not want to, but they did have to avoid participating in it.