Henry David Thoreau’s audience in “Civil Disobedience” is the American public. He wrote this essay in 1847, while Black people were still enslaved on plantations in the American South, and his essay addresses, in part, the injustices of the institution of slavery. In this essay, Thoreau makes the argument that people have a moral duty to break unjust laws, using their own consciences as their guides rather than the law, because something legal can still be unjust. One example he uses is slavery: slavery was legal, of course, but that does not make it just or right. According to Thoreau, we have an obligation to rebel against injustice, even when that injustice is legal. We could do this by refusing to pay our taxes, as he does, so that our money does not go to support or uphold the unjust laws or institutions. Further, Thoreau believes that the war with Mexico is unjust as well, and he does not want his money to support it. Although it is illegal to refuse to pay one’s taxes, it is the just thing to do, and so Thoreau urges his fellow Americans to make sure not to “pursue [their goals while] sitting upon another man’s shoulders.” Live your life how you choose, he says, but not while stripping rights away from someone else.