Henry D. Thoreau's Resistance to Civil Government,On the duty of Civil Disobedience, bring us his way of changing things that he does not feel is right, or just. He advices that when a law or a government action is not rightful and just for you, the best way of protesting against it is not paying your taxes; He did not wanted to finance the Mexican- American war, and the laws that support slavery, so he stopped paying his taxes and went to jail, thinking that if every good person who thinks the same way stops paying their taxes and suffer the penalty as well, the government will be inclined to change these unjust measures.
"(...)If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible." Excerpt of On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.
Thoreau makes some reference to other literature of the time, one that represents opposite ideas to his:
"Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, in his chapter on the “Duty of Submission to Civil Government,” resolves all civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say, “that so long as the interest of the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will of God that the established government be obeyed, and no longer.”"
William Paley, in this excerpt is stating that Government must be obeyed, no matter what happens.
The text presents some references of political ideas of the time, ideas that he does not support and makes he think of the Civil Disobedience strategy. The government is eager of territory expansion through wars and keeping slavery. He, in the following excerpt states the government ideas that many people supports:
"Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, co-operate with, and do the bidding of those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not materially wiser or better than the many."
So, best options that apply as evidence to the historical context in which "Civil Disobedience" was written, based on the text is: A. Reference to the Mexican American war; B.Reference to other literature of the time. ;D.Reference to political ideas of the time.
