Question

What is the thesis statement of the essay "Civil Disobedience"?

Accepted Answer

A thesis statement is basically the topic of your paper, a statement of your opinion and what you intend to prove or discuss in the essay. Ordinarily, we're taught that the thesis statement should be the last sentence of the introduce. However, Thoreau did not follow this advice in his essay "Civil Disobedience." You might say that the very first sentence tells us what Thoreau believes and intends to write about. I think, though, that the next to last sentence in the introduction is his thesis:

...The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it....

If I were grading Thoreau's essay, I might write in the margin that his last sentence should begin a new paragraph.
See the postings in the Essay Lab group for more help with writing a thesis statement.

Answer

I would argue that the thesis statement to "Civil Disobedience" can be found in a paragraph near the middle of the essay:

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth—certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

In "Civil Disobedience," Thoreau considers whether people in a democratic society are bound to obey the will of the majority (the source, at least in theory, of laws). He argues that the fact that a law has been passed does not mean that it is morally justified. Moreover, he asserts the right of the individual to refuse to obey laws that one considers unjust. Indeed, as he suggests in the passage quoted above, this is more of a duty of all just people in the face of an oppressive law. This radically individualistic view of democracy motivated Thoreau in his opposition to slavery and the Mexican War, which he registered by refusing to pay a Massachusetts poll tax. When there was conflict between a person's conscience and the law, the person was bound by that same conscience to refuse to obey the law. The state, Thoreau said, had no coercive power over one's conscience. While he harbored no illusion that his individual action might end the conflict, or indeed slavery, he claimed that he should at least not contribute to it. He expressed this by saying that he should not "lend myself to the wrong which I condemn." The entire essay, in many ways, elaborates on this central proposition.

Answer

The first two sentences of Thoreau's landmark essay serve as its thesis. He says,

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe—"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

Typically, when directing students to write formal essays, teachers say that the writer ought not to refer to himself or herself with the first person pronoun "I"; however, Thoreau is not writing a five-paragraph essay, and he is not being graded. The ideas contained in these sentences serve as the main claim which everything else in the essay is designed to support: first, that government is a hindrance to the efficiency of a society more than a help and that it ought to stay out of the individual's way more often than it does, and secondly, that when the individual has learned, truly, the strength and power of his or her own actions, the government really will not need to govern at all.

Answer

The thesis is unclear becuase he is does not really prove one single point in this essay, but if there was he were to write a thesis it would have probably been something about the evils of government and the importance ong nonconformity.

Answer

I'm not sure to which essay you are referring, but the thesis statement is the sentence that sums up what your entire essay is about. You usually can find it at the end of the introduction and in the conclusion. For example, in an essay about the American Civil War, the thesis statement could be, "The main cause of the American civil war was the Union's non-recognition of the Southern states right to keep slaves."

Civil Disobedience

What is the thesis statement of the essay "Civil Disobedience"?

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