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, cooperate 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. It is not so important that many should be as good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man. But it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.--Thoreau (1849) Civil Disobedience.
At the core of Thoreau's argument on behalf of civil disobedience is the idea that democratic rule, the rule of many, is fundamentally the rule of "superior physical strength." And from the rule of strength one cannot expect moral rule. In fact, if one could expect such moral rule one wouldn't need democracy.
The rule of many is contrasted to the individual with conscience. In fact, Thoreau re-conceptualizes the rugged (Emersonian) self-reliant individual, true masculinity, as the person capable of exercising conscience against the self-interested, machine-like many (and machine-like institution): "The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies." I return to this below.
This raises uncomfortable questions about Thoreau's commitment to democracy. Of course, he would (rightly) retort that democracy is capable of genocide* and maintains, directly and indirectly, the institution of slavery.
Thoreau, is explicit that, and he treats this as a benefit of modernity, that for a state to have legitimate authority it "must have the sanction and consent of the governed." But he is equally clear -- see the quoted passage above -- that a willingness to accept majority rule, a willingness to abide by even awful election results, also entails a kind of lack of moral seriousness, "a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions."
His main criticism is not the familiar idea that a single vote cannot make a meaningful difference in mass democracy, but rather that individuals take their apparent inability to make a difference too seriously. And this impotent inability, this expediency, is then expressed in a whole range of symbolic (because ineffective) forms of protest: virtue signaling, petitions, etc. What's lacking is conviction and effectiveness to meet one's duty to fight enormous injustice.** So, Thoreau's fundamental argument for civil disobedience+ is that given the many forms of (self-interested) status quo bias institutionalized in democracy, and given the limited effectiveness of most forms of legal protest, it is a necessary evil by which the few can change the policy preferred by the many.
I mentioned above that for Thoreau to be a true man just is the willingness to act on conscience at possible high cost to oneself. But this presupposes that one has social capital to spare for a good cause. It is clear that certain forms of civil disobedience are for all their sincere conviction also, simultaneously, expressions of certain social standing. Lurking in his account is a republican ideal of independent self-sufficiency, a species of noblesse oblige.
Of course, civil disobedience need not be an expression of class (ahh) privilege. The vulnerable, those that are victims of structural injustice can, of course, also engage in civil disobedience; but for them the choice to do so is more existential. To borrow (recall) a point from Amia Srinivasan, there is a second order form of injustice lurking here.The vulnerable, the victims of structural injustice, face a tragic choice between civic disobedience or getting on with life. For many a criminal record even in the service of a most worthy cause is not the source of good jail stories -- Thoreau edges, alas, uncomfortably close to this --, but a major, fundamental obstacle to any other valuable life plans. So, when the vulnerable engage in civil disobedience it is an act of courageous self-sacrifice.++
*Slavery and the Mexican war are the main injustices, but, en passant, he mentions that the "Indian" and the "wrongs [done to] his race."
**Thoreau does not require that one has to fight every enormous injustice anyway; but one must tackle the ones one benefits from or is complicit in.
+Thoreau anticipates the modern (familiar from Rawls) understanding of civil disobedience as a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken to change law/policy.
++I thank my students for class discussion.
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