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Epic battles in practical ethics: Arendt vs Thoreau
In late July 1846, Henry David Thoreau ran into a tax collector, Sam Staples, in the town of Concord, Massachusetts. Staples asked Thoreau to pay six years of due poll taxes, but the American writer refused, on the grounds of his opposition to both slavery and the Mexican-American war of expansion. As a result, Thoreau spent the night in jail, being freed the following day when his aunt paid the taxes against his wishes.
Thoreau delivered lectures on the episode, under the title of “The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government,” explaining his general take on civil disobedience. Bronson Alcott wrote this about the lectures in his Journals (Little, Brown and Company, 1938):
Heard Thoreau’s lecture before the Lyceum on the relation of the individual to the State — an admirable statement of the rights of the individual to self-government, and an attentive audience. His allusions to the Mexican War, to Mr. Hoar’s expulsion from Carolina, his own imprisonment in Concord Jail for refusal to pay his tax, Mr. Hoar’s payment of mine when taken to prison for a similar…
