Heroes of Peace, volume 1

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Higher Laws, 1854

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
Henry David Thoreau



Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817- May 6, 1862)

A graduate of Harvard University, his first job was as a teacher. A post which lasted only two weeks, at which point he resigned protesting the requirement for corporal punishment.

Best known in popular culture for his literary work, Walden, a first person narrative describing two year period in which he lived outside of civilization in New England. It was his goal to determine if a man could live on his wits, without the benefits of modern technology, and if that would in fact be a better way to live as proposed by the American Transcendentalist movement. The novel tells the story in only one calendar year, making use of metaphor to discuss issues of human development.

Despite this narrow focus of literary attention, Thoreau was an active participant in his society. He was a fervent abolitionist, an anti-war activist, and environmentalist.

Abolition:

I wish my countrymen to consider, that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length even become the laughing-stock of the world.
Henry David Thoreau
-Slavery in Massachussetts

A life long opponent of slavery, Thoreau was vocal in his opposition of the laws that enabled slavery in the south, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the hypocritical compromise made in the original US Constitution.
In an essay, Slavery in Massachusetts, (http://thoreau.eserver.org/slavery.html) Thoreau rails against the hypocrisy of his fellow Commonwealth citizens for arguing against allowing Nebraska to have slaves while there were slaves in Massachusetts. He further decries the support for the Fugitive Slave Laws which allowed a judge determine whether an African-American man was free or in need of returning to his master. He found it unbelievable that one man could have the prerogative to determine what had clearly been given to every human from birth till death by natural law: liberty.

Without a doubt his greatest contribution to the abolitionist movement was his support of John Brown. Brown was a Caucasian American who advocated armed resistance to slavery. In 1859 he led a raid on Harper’s Ferry, [West] Virginia seizing an armory with a small band of men. The attempt was crushed quickly by General Robert E. Lee, 13 men died and Brown was captured. He was later tried and convicted of treason and inciting slave insurrection and put to death. Most newspapers and citizens criticized Brown as deluded and foolish.
Thoreau, however, praised Brown for having the courage to act on his convictions. In an essay, A Plea for John Brown, (http://www.transcendentalists.com/thoreau_plea_john_brown.htm) Thoreau lambasted Brown’s critics. He compared Brown’s execution to the Crucifixion of Jesus (not that Brown was divine, but that a supporter of the downtrodden was being silenced unjustly) and the government to Pontius Pilot. He further scolded contemporary Christians for saying their prayers and going to bed knowing there was an injustice they did nothing about.
It was stated by many later in the century, that John Brown was the impetus for the Civil War and that John Brown’s name was known because of Thoreau.
It may seem counterintuitive to contain here a story of war in this first passage of “Heroes of Peace”. However, my point is that not only was Thoreau opposed to the injustice of slavery; he actively worked against it intellectually to the eventuality of having an affect on his culture without ever advocating war. The fact that violence was seen as the only way to resolve the conflict by his contemporaries is due to other issues discussed in my first article.

Environmentalism:
"What we call wildness is a civilization other than our own."
-Henry David Thoreau, personal journal 1859

Thoreau is considered by many to be the father of the modern environmentalist movement. He spent many hours wandering into the wilderness surrounding his home of Concord, Massachusetts. He often remarked that, "Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it." He found in nature an opportunity to study the divine. He believed that the presence of the creator could be found in the world around us.
Observing the destruction of wild-lands for lumber and farmland, Thoreau began to press the cause for every urban area to maintain a park that must remained preserved in its natural state. This was the first step towards today’s state and national park system.


Anti-War:

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Henry David Thoreau
-On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

In late July of 1846 Thoreau was arrested for refusing to pay a local tax collector back poll taxes owed. His reasons included opposition to slavery and the Mexican-American war. (background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican-American_War)
Thoreau only spent one night in jail, as his aunt chose to pay his taxes for him. A generous gesture that he had neither requested nor expressed gratitude for. He in fact felt that jail was the best place for him to have been under the circumstances. There is a story that Ralph Waldo Emerson, patron and fellow transcendentalist, had come to visit Thoreau in jail. When he asked. “What are you doing in jail?” Thoreau replied, “What are you doing not in jail?”
Regardless of the veracity of this story, it is true as a result of these experiences Thoreau wrote “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” (http://www.transcendentalists.com/civil_disobedience.htm) an essay about the need for citizens to resist unjust actions by their government through peaceful means. Many famous activists of the twentieth century, including Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., claim a heavy influence of this essay on their decision to pursue peaceful resistance.

Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practice in himself. He was one of the greatest and most moral men America has produced. At the time of the abolition of slavery movement, he wrote his famous essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”. He went to gaol for the sake of his principles and suffering humanity. His essay has, therefore, been sanctified by suffering. Moreover, it is written for all time. Its incisive logic is unanswerable.
-Gandhi, M.K. “For Passive Resisters” Indian Opinion 26 October 1907

During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience for the first time. Here, in this courageous New Englander’s refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery’s territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.
I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau.
-King, M.L. Morehouse College (Chapter 2 of The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.)




Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience was a call for citizens to obey their conscience. He made several key points in the essay which he elaborated on at some length:
• Government only has the authority over us which we concede to it
• Government should interfere with citizens as little as possible
• Citizens must resist unjust laws
• Allowing unjust laws to continue makes one complicit in the crime
• It is hypocrisy to praise a soldier for refusing to fight an unjust war while paying the taxes that support that war
• It is hypocrisy to claim freedom while allowing slavery
• If one believes something is right, one must act on it
• If the conscience of the individual is subjugated to the will of the majority, there is no justice or freedom
• The best way to resist an unjust government is not to support it financially
• In an unjust society, just men can only be found in prison


Conclusion:
Regardless of one’s agreement or disagreement with Thoreau’s philosophy, it is undeniable the effect he has had on our culture. The Environmentalist movement, the Civil Rights movement, and the Civil Disobedience movements are all heavily influenced by Thoreau. Although it could legitimately be pointed out that each of these movements have at one time or another disrupted our society, the non-violent goal of each is to create a culture that lives more humbly, lives in balance with our surroundings, and recognizes the rights of others to conduct their own affairs. Were these ideals to reach fruition, the degree of strife in our world would be significantly reduced.

Peace be with you.