Reading guide for “Resistance to Civil Government” by Henry David Thoreau

Word process your responses.

1. Read the introductory notes about Thoreau and explain the relationship between Thoreau

and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

2. Paraphrase this sentence: “That government is best which governs least.”

3. Explain the image of the wooden gun.

4. Explain how men serve the State not as “men mainly, but as machines…”

5. With what two political issues is Thoreau concerned in this essay?

6. Explain in the context of the essay: “It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote

himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong;…it is his duty to wash his

hands of it…”

7. Explain the image of the “necessary friction of the machine of government.”

8. How, according to Thoreau, can slavery be abolished?

9. Describe Thoreau’s reaction to his night in jail.

10. Explain: “I do not care to trace the course of my dollar…till it buys a man, or a musket to

shoot one with…”

11. What does Thoreau believe to be the correct relationship between the individual and the

government?