H ENRY D AVID T HOREAU ( ) Walden & Civil Disobedience

What is Transcendentalism? Transcendentalism is a group of ideas in literature and philosophy that developed in the 1830s and 1840s as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among the transcendentalists' core beliefs was the belief in an ideal spirituality that "transcends" the physical body and is realized only through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. The major figures in the movement were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Amos Bronson Alcott (father of Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women). Transcendentalism was in many aspects the first notable American intellectual movement.

Walden Thoreau embarked on a two-year experiment in simple living on July 4, 1845, when he moved to a small, self-built house on land owned by Emerson in a second- growth forest around the shores of Walden Pond.

Thoreau’s Walden Thoreau’s cabin (interior) Replica of Thoreau's cabin near Walden Pond and his statue

Thoreau on being awake. “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep.”

Thoreau left Walden Pond on September 6, Over several years, he worked to pay off his debts and also continuously revised his manuscript for what, in 1854, he would publish as Walden, or Life in the Woods, recounting the two years, two months, and two days he had spent at Walden Pond. Part memoir and part spiritual quest, Walden at first won few admirers, but later critics have regarded it as a classic American work that explores natural simplicity, harmony, and beauty as models for just social and cultural conditions. American poet Robert Frost wrote of Thoreau’s Walden, "In one book... he surpasses everything we have had in America."

Civil Disobedience On July 24 or July 25, 1846, Thoreau ran into the local tax collector, Sam Staples, who asked him to pay six years of delinquent poll taxes. Thoreau refused because of his opposition to the Mexican-American War and slavery, and he spent a night in jail because of this refusal. (The next day Thoreau was freed, against his wishes, when his aunt paid his taxes.) The experience had a strong impact on Thoreau. Civil Disobedience (Resistance to Civil Government) was first published as an essay in In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or weaken their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such compliance to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice.

Gandhi & King: Disciples of Thoreau Gandhi, a Hindu, inspired King, a Christian, to risk arrest for nonviolent protest against unjust laws. Both dedicated their lives to the principles of nonviolence and civil disobedience for social change. And both men learned about civil disobedience from the writings of the Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau.

Mohandas Gandhi: “Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practice in himself. He was one of the greatest and most moral men America has produced. At the time of the abolition of slavery movement, he wrote his famous essay ‘On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.’ He went to jail for the sake of his principles and suffering humanity. His essay has, therefore, been sanctified by suffering. Moreover, it is written for all time. Its incisive logic is unanswerable.” (1907)

Martin Luther King, Jr.: “During my student days I made my first contact with Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience and the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times. I became convinced that non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters or a freedom ride into Mississippi, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.”

Thoreau’s Influence: "Thoreau's careful observations and devastating conclusions have rippled into time, becoming stronger as the weaknesses Thoreau noted have become more pronounced…Events that seem to be completely unrelated to his stay at Walden Pond have been influenced by it, including the national park system, the British labor movement, the creation of India, the civil rights movement, the hippie revolution, and the environmental movement. Today, Thoreau's words are quoted with feeling by liberals, socialists, anarchists, libertarians, and conservatives alike." —Ken Kifer

Wherever There Is Beauty… Thoreau’s death went relatively unnoticed. In November 1860, he caught a severe cold that slowly deepened into consumption (tuberculosis) from which he never recovered. On May 6, 1862, at the age of 44, Henry David Thoreau died. Months later, Ralph Waldo Emerson published a eulogy for his friend, “He was bred to no profession; he never married; he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State: he ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun. He chose, wisely, no doubt, for himself, to be the bachelor of thought and Nature. He had no talent for wealth, and knew how to be poor without the least hint of squalor or inelegance…Thoreau was sincerity itself.” Emerson’s eulogy concluded, “The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home.”

Memorable Quotes Henry David Thoreau 1"That government is best which governs least.” 2“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.” 3“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” 4“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” 5“In wildness is the preservation of the world.” 6“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” 7“Men have become the tools of their tools.” 8“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.” 9“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” 10“What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?”