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
efusal to end slavery and with its participation in the Mexican-American War
is not a man's duty to devote himself to the eradication of any wrong; he may still property have
Other concems 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,
"umished 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.
Select the correct answer.
How does Thoreau support his claim in this excerpt?
OA
O B.
He shares statistics about casualties in the Mexican-American War
He uses measurable evidence about the number of people who have refused to join the US Army.
He tells an anecdote about a townsman who refused to "march to Mexico' and what happened to him.
O D.
He uses reasoning, showing the logical consequences of supporting a cause that is wrong.