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Cynthia Cleveland
Conscience and Civil Disobedience
The idea of Civil Disobedience, as discussed in Henry
David Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government” presents the idea of achieving
a more perfect system of government through the means of peaceful resistance. To
enact change with a system of government, there must be a distinct disruption
with that system which would be impossible to ignore; that is, the minority must
become the majority. This particular method of resistance has been utilized
throughout history to effect change with positive results—one such example being
Rosa Parks’s imprisonment for refusing to cede her bus seat for a white man
(Course site/Civil Disobedience). This document enlightens the reader to the
reasons that passive resistance is surely the most valuable and effective tool
when striving for change.
It
is important that any change sought should be obtained via passive resistance
for a number of reasons, but the most important being that violence is never
progressive and rarely evokes significant change. Take John Brown for example, a
staunch abolitionist, who engaged in—for lack of a better term—militia-style
warfare against the government; John Brown is certainly famous for his
endeavors, but one would be hard-pressed to discover any significant
achievements resulting from his violent attempts to further the abolition of
slavery. If anything, it perhaps acted as a hindrance to his goal—detracting
would be abolitionists from joining any existing movements and stripping
abolitionists of any credibility they may have possessed for their cause.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s serialized novel Uncle Tom’s
Cabin was in itself an act of Civil Disobedience, in that it sought to show
the horrors in injustices of slavery in an attempt to invoke sympathy for their
sufferings. Stowe invokes irony in the first chapter of this novel to show how
ideas of what is considered to be “humane” in the South stands in stark contrast
to actual notions of humanity. Mr. Shelby and Mr. Haley discuss the selling of
slaves to relieve Mr. Shelby’s debt—during which Mr. Shelby vehemently opposes
selling Harry, because he is “a humane man, and [he] hate[s] to take the boy
from his mother.” The irony is not lost on the reader, as what Mr. Shelby
considers to be “humane” is morally relative. Further, Mr. Haley reassures his
client that the mother “ain’t like white folks, you know; they gets over things,
you manage right.” This is by no means the utmost horror the book has to offer,
but it makes an important point regarding morality—or perhaps more astutely
moral relativism.
This moral relativism Stowe addresses in her novel is
reminiscent of Thoreau’s ideas regarding the importance of conscience over law.
That is, the transcendent idea that “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect
for the law, so much as for the right.” (Thoreau). This particular idea that
Thoreau explains in great detail, urges that allowing “the majority” the ability
to rule over the government for such long periods results in such atrocities as
slavery and the Mexican War, because it is profitable (Thoreau). This same
rationale may be applied to Stowe’s scenario in which slavery is legal, and
therefore acceptable—and remained so for so long because it was a profitable
business in the South—but asks us to consider whether this sits well on the
reader’s conscience. Is Mr. Shelby’s paternal behavior really “humane”? Can we
deduce that his benevolence in allowing this five-year-old boy to stay with his
mother is truly a selfless and humane act?
Thoreau’s essay seeks to provide the reader with the
definition and the means by which to conduct Civil Disobedience for the greater
good. It seeks to imbue within the reader the importance of conscience over the
blind adherence to the law, which has been shown to be rather unjust in the
past—and still is in some cases today. The means by which we invoke change
within our government rests in peaceful resistance. Stowe exhibits a sort of
Civil Disobedience in her novel by challenging our ideas of what can be
considered humane, even if such behavior is acceptable by law, and giving the
reader space to sympathize with those who are bound to such an unjust
institution. It pleads us to consider our conscience and to consider “the
right”—as Thoreau puts it.
