Adapted excerpt from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau wrote this influential essay in 1849 because he was disgusted with the US government’s refusal to end slavery and with its participation in the Mexican-American War.

It is not a man’s duty to devote himself to the eradication of any wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him. But it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and not to give it practically his support. I have heard some of my townsmen say, “I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico,—see if I would go.” And yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and indirectly, by their money, furnished a substitute. Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made to pay support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin, comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.

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Select the correct answer.
How does Thoreau support his claim in this excerpt?

A.
He uses reasoning, showing the logical consequences of supporting a cause that is wrong.
B.
He tells an anecdote about a townsman who refused to “march to Mexico” and what happened to him.
C.
He uses measurable evidence about the number of people who have refused to join the US Army.
D.
He shares statistics about casualties in the Mexican-American War.