Thoreau On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience Analysis

History encountered different individuals whom have each impacted the Twenty-First century in one way or another; two important men who revolted against the government in order to achieve justice consist of Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. Both men impacted numerous individuals with their powerful words, their words carried the ability to inspire both men and women to do right by their morality and not follow unjust laws. “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” by David Henry Thoreau along with King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, allow the audience to understand what it means to protest for what is moral. A transcendentalist whom strongly urged passive, non-violent resistance to the government’s policies to which an individual’s …show more content…
‘I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up”(Thoreau hjk). Thoreau protested for the abolition of slavery and was against the Mexican-American war, meanwhile King protested for equality, therefore both had different reasons for their opposition to the government, but in the end they both went against the immorality of the government. Considering that Thoreau was not an actual victim of social injustice, he in a sense, was less slightly less frustrated with injustice. King on the other hand was an actual victim who was physically abused and people were less comprehensive about his beliefs due to the color of his skin. King shows what it means to fight peacefully fight the government in his own way, “I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends” (King adks). King understands that in order to seek justice, he must cleanse himself from the injustice that occurs; since he is trying to acquire justice for all Negroes, he must allow his body to be struck with violence, incarcerated, humiliated and worse. King does not have the same amount of the buttress that Thoreau has, King on the other hand ought to be careful when it comes to his words and actions. One