There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few went to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.
— Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience [1849]
- Thoreau Biography
American Poems - Mr. Thoreau
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Eldritch Press - Thoreau and “Resistance to Civil Government”
by Gary M. Galles
Ludwig von Mises Institute - On the Duty Civil Disobedience
by Henry David Thoreau
Constitution.org - Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
Elritch Press - Thoreau Bibliography
California State University