On Civil Disobedience 2020
In 1968 I was 14 years old and in the ninth grade. The civil rights movement was expanding and confronting racial injustice in America. Peaceful protesters had marches and sit-ins. Martin Luther King was assassinated. Some protesters burned police cars and businesses. The Vietnam war was in full swing and escalating. Young people and citizens took to the streets to protest. Some protesters burn the American flag and their draft cards. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. Feminist women held rallies to protest gender inequality. Some protesters burnt their bras to symbolize their independence from a history of male domination, suppression, and stereotyping.
It was a turbulent year in American history. Yet , the vast majority of protesting was non-violent. The protesters were protesting violence and injustice perpetrated by the American government. In many cases, protesters were met with government sanctioned violence.
It was in 1968 as a 14-year-old ninth grader that I wrote a report about Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi and the origins of civil disobedience. The following is an edited version of that report with some additional comments added at the end.
Civil Disobedience: Thoreau and Gandhi.
Thoreau was born in 1817 and lived in Concord Massachusetts. he grew up with and loved nature. He went to Harvard for four years, but made little use of his education in the form of a profession. Throw didn’t believe too much in work not because he was lazy but because he thought that there were more important things in life. He pitied the workers who spent all of their waking hours over a desk or plowing the fields Who were too busy to take a day off to find the meaning of life. Throw said that, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Thoreau’s mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that, “Modern man was taking from nature everything he needed to supply his material wants but, at the same time, he was losing his greatest heritage, his capacity to see nature’s beauty and to feel her joy.“
In 1845, Thoreau built a very simple log cabin and planted a very simple garden, by Walden Pond on land owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson. he wrote essays on life with nature and later published them in a book titled Walden. He wrote “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.“ he believed that “a man must do what he thinks is right, learn to depend on himself for what he needs, live simply and want little.
Yet he was a citizen of the United States and was forced to deal with some of the state's imperfections.
In 1846 Thoreau was told he had to pay his tax of $1.50. But he refused to pay the tax and consequently was put in jail. Why did he refuse to pay his tax? For two reasons, first is that it supported a war with Mexico and second it supported slavery in the south. He said “it is a question of conscience.“
In 1849 Thoreau published an essay titled Civil Disobedience. In this great masterpiece he wrote “The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.“ Thoreau saw that the American form of government ruled by a majority that believed that “might makes right”. Thoreau questioned, “Is it my duty as a citizen to obey my government because it is my government or do I as a patriotic citizen, have a higher duty to resist it when it contradicts my conscience?“ Thoreau wrote, “A true patriot will resist a tyrannical majority“.
Thoreau agreed that he should pay the price of his actions of not paying his tax by going to jail. He believed that if other patriotic good citizens joined together and also refused to pay their tax, that they, a small number of powerless individuals could lead a very efficient protest.
Again Thoreau questioned “Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them or shall we endeavor to amend them and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?“ His answer to that question “Break the law.“
Mohandas Gandhi was born in 1869 in India. He was born a Hindu and lived as a Hindu. He was married off by his parents as was the custom at the age of 13. When Gandhi finished high school he was sent to England for legal training. India was part of the British Empire. He returned to India with a law degree. Two years later in 1893 he moved to South Africa to be a legal advisor. At that time South Africa was also part of the British Empire. As part of the empire both India and South Africa were ruled by the white Europeans and non-whites were treated inferior. Gandhi saw this as being unjust.
One day Gandhi bought a first class ticket to ride the train. When he showed the conductor he was told and then forced to sit in the baggage car. this did not sit well with Gandhi.
Soon after the Congress of South Africa was going to pass a bill that would deny Indians the right to vote. Gandhi organized a protest against it which got excellent results. The protest unified the Indian people, yet the bill became law. The Indians really didn’t have any defense against the British except through petitions.
The British then proposed a new bill that would require all Indians to register and carry identification with them at all times. Gandhi asked every Indian to join together in disobedience of the law if it was passed. Gandhi warned “it is not at all impossible that we might have to endure every hardship that we can imagine and wisdom lies in pledging ourselves on the understanding that we shall have to suffer all that and worse“.
“Satyagraha” was the name given to the resistance, it is Indian for “the force contained in truth and love“ or non-violent resistance. Gandhi said “Non-violence is in all sided sword, that blesses him who uses it and him against whom it is used, without drawing a drop of blood.“
The registration bill passed and only a few Indians turned out to register. Gandhi was put in jail for two months. More and more Indians resisted and were jailed and the jails became overcrowded. The British called Gandhi to a meeting and a compromise was reached and all prisoners were released. However South Africa‘s Prime Minister, General Smuts did not want to follow Britain’s compromise and continued imposing restrictions.
Gandhi developed a plan and warned the South African government of his intentions. On August 16, 1908 Gandhi collected and burned over 2000 registration certificates in a dramatic ceremony unifying the Indian people and drawing great publicity.
Gandhi was jailed along with many other Indians. In prison Gandhi read Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience and the line which says, “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.“
Constant pressure by the Satyagrahas forced the British to lift the restrictions on the Indian immigrants. But general Smuts continued to be uncooperative with England and imposed new restrictions and taxes on the Indian people.
Gandhi planned another protest this time organizing Indians to illegally cross territorial lines to be arrested. call miners joined the protest. Gandhi and many protesters were arrested and jailed. Word got back to England. They set up a committee to investigate the Indian situation in South Africa. Gandhi wanted some Indians to be on the committee but was refused. Gandhi planned another strike. General Tso’s smarts called a conference. A compromise was reached and many restrictions and taxes were lifted on the Indian people. The Indian people of South Africa were once doubtful but Gandhi gave them unity. “Morality“, Gandhi said, was the key. He used this key to open the door for freedom to all Indians in South Africa.
Gandhi returned to India with the goal of helping to free India from British rule. The Indian national Congress, the outlet for planning for the Indian people, was useless because of too much interior confusion. They looked to Gandhi for help.
Gandhi called for a 24 hour strike, where all activity by the Indians would stop. The strike occurred but there were some rioting and shootings in Delhi. Gandhi called off his continued Satyagraha plans. The British announced a proclamation that Indians could not gather publicly. A group unaware of the new proclamation imposing restrictions, gathered together. 50 soldiers armed with guns and 75 more with knives closed in on the Indians and open fired. The British soldiers killed 379 people and wounded 1137. The officer in charge wrote a report stating that he had done the right thing. This shocked India. In addition The British imposed the “crawling order“. This was the result of an Indian mob attacking an English woman. The crawling order was an ordinance that all Indians that passed this place were to crawl on all hands and knees. These actions by the British united the Indian population in Satyagraha aims.
Gandhi proposed non-cooperation! He told the Indian people not to wear English clothes, not to send children to British schools, and not to use the English language.
Gandhi‘s plan put a close to many British textile factories and large numbers of the British people were out of work. Many arrests were made. But a situation occurred where Indians murdered 22 policemen. Gandhi called off the mass civil disobedience. The Indians thought Gandhi was crazy, but all went along with what he said. Gandhi knew that non-violence could become violent and he worked hard to keep control of the movement.
The British blamed Gandhi and arrested him and placed him in jail. When Gandhi went to court to defend himself he stated “non-cooperation with evil, is as much a duty as is cooperation with good“. Gandhi was given a six year jail sentence. In less than two years of his prison term he got a case of appendicitis and was treated and let out of prison.
The Indian people believed that non-cooperation was a failure and lost confidence in Gandhi.
In 1928 the British government in India had a monopoly on salt manufacturing and made it a law that to possess salt was a crime. Gandhi went back into action. Gandhi warned the government of his civil disobedient intentions.
Gandhi and his followers marched 200 miles to the sea to get salt. Thousands of followers joined the march and people all over the world followed the march in the newspapers.
The British police went into action.Gandhi encouraged every Indian to break the law. About 60,000 offenders were put in jail.
Gandhi then warned of his plan to raid a salt plant. The salt plant was surrounded by a ditch filled with water and a barbed wire fence and 400 police.
Columns of marchers came and were clubbed on the head. they did not defend themselves. The columns kept coming. There were 320 injured and two had died.
News got back to Britain. The people of England wanted Gandhi set free and for India to become free and independent.
Gandhi went to England to meet with the British rulers. Nothing was accomplished but God did gain the hearts of the British people. Candy went back to India and said he was going to lead a new campaign. He was again put in jail.
The British then announced that they wanted separate elections for the Hindus of India and the untouchables of India. Gandhi opposed this for it would further separate all the people of India.
Gandhi announced from prison that he would fast until death if the Hindus and untouchables did not join together in peace. The Hindus and untouchable leaders got together and signed an agreement to do away with separate elections. This went to England and they agreed. Not to have separate elections. After five days of fasting Gandhi had succeeded in uniting the people again.
Gandhi was released from prison in 1933 and suspended the mass campaign of civil disobedience but urged individuals to continue with non-cooperation. Over the next seven years Gandhi focused on trying to unite the Hindus with the untouchables with the Muslims.
In 1945 Clement Atlee the new Prime Minister of England announced it would give India independence as soon as it solved its own internal problems. It was a question of Muslims versus Hindus. Violence erupted. Gandhi tried to help but failed to unite the two religions. In 1947 Gandhi and other leaders met. Gandhi wanted one nation and the other leaders wanted separate nations dividing Muslims and Hindus. Gandhi lost the debate. On August 15, 1947 India became free as two nations, a Hindu India and a Muslin Pakistan. Gandhi fasted for unity. After six days the leaders of the Hindus and Muslims assured him that there would be no more harassment between the two groups. Soon however they broke that promise.
On January 30, 1948 Gandhi was assassinated on his way to a prayer meeting.
The following additions were made in 2020.
Henry David Thoreau laid the philosophical foundation for civil disobedience. Mohandas Gandhi built upon that foundation and added non-cooperation tactics. Thoreau and Gandhi were deeply committed to non-violence. They knew that violence feeds violence.They believed that civil disobedience, non-violence, passive resistance, non-cooperation and peaceful protesting were the best ways to change injustice, oppression and violence committed by people and governments in power.
The morality of peace, love and kindness are ultimately more powerful than unjust laws and the abuse of power by tyranny and tyrants.
In reviewing my 1968 report, I went back to Thoreau’s original civil disobedience essay. In it, Thoreau writes about the act of voting.
Voting is a key ingredient to democracy. It is supposedly how leaders are elected and laws are made. America’s revolutionary war was fought over voting rights. “No taxation without representation“. The constitution, “we the people“ has much to say about voting. The abolitionists and the Civil War were fought to set slaves free and eventually give them the right to vote. The women’s suffrage movement was all about the right for women to vote. Gandhi peacefully fought for voting rights in South Africa and India. Martin Luther king used civil disobedience to expand and protect voting rights for African-Americans.
Voting is vital to a healthy democracy. In our present day America, the right to vote is being threatened. Restrictions are being placed on voting. Voter ID laws are being imposed. Voting hours are being reduced. Polling places are being reduced. Voter suppression and intimidation is happening in insidious ways.
And then we have gerrymandered voting districts and the supreme court ruling giving corporations the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections ( Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission).
And to make matters worse, we have politicians acting criminally to corrupt and rig elections.
We often hear that “every vote counts“, “all votes need to be counted“, “ your vote can make a difference“. But really, what is the value of your one vote these days?
The following is what Thoreau wrote about voting in his essay civil disobedience. He begins by addressing the issues of slavery and the war with Mexico.
“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 then 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 ladder would be harmless.”
“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...”
“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...”
“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 about that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. It’s 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, but wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.”
“Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merrily, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.”
To cast your vote once every four years to elect the president or to go to the polls once every two years to vote for a representative, is the very least a person can do as a citizen to change the world. Even, even if you have to stand in line for five hours in order to vote.
Each of us is capable of doing much much more to change the world for the better than just casting an occasional vote. Thoreau and Gandhi advocated and set examples for using our whole being for being the change we want to see happening in our world.
Each one of us can change the world if we cast our votes with our whole being.
It was a turbulent year in American history. Yet , the vast majority of protesting was non-violent. The protesters were protesting violence and injustice perpetrated by the American government. In many cases, protesters were met with government sanctioned violence.
It was in 1968 as a 14-year-old ninth grader that I wrote a report about Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi and the origins of civil disobedience. The following is an edited version of that report with some additional comments added at the end.
Civil Disobedience: Thoreau and Gandhi.
Thoreau was born in 1817 and lived in Concord Massachusetts. he grew up with and loved nature. He went to Harvard for four years, but made little use of his education in the form of a profession. Throw didn’t believe too much in work not because he was lazy but because he thought that there were more important things in life. He pitied the workers who spent all of their waking hours over a desk or plowing the fields Who were too busy to take a day off to find the meaning of life. Throw said that, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Thoreau’s mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that, “Modern man was taking from nature everything he needed to supply his material wants but, at the same time, he was losing his greatest heritage, his capacity to see nature’s beauty and to feel her joy.“
In 1845, Thoreau built a very simple log cabin and planted a very simple garden, by Walden Pond on land owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson. he wrote essays on life with nature and later published them in a book titled Walden. He wrote “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.“ he believed that “a man must do what he thinks is right, learn to depend on himself for what he needs, live simply and want little.
Yet he was a citizen of the United States and was forced to deal with some of the state's imperfections.
In 1846 Thoreau was told he had to pay his tax of $1.50. But he refused to pay the tax and consequently was put in jail. Why did he refuse to pay his tax? For two reasons, first is that it supported a war with Mexico and second it supported slavery in the south. He said “it is a question of conscience.“
In 1849 Thoreau published an essay titled Civil Disobedience. In this great masterpiece he wrote “The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.“ Thoreau saw that the American form of government ruled by a majority that believed that “might makes right”. Thoreau questioned, “Is it my duty as a citizen to obey my government because it is my government or do I as a patriotic citizen, have a higher duty to resist it when it contradicts my conscience?“ Thoreau wrote, “A true patriot will resist a tyrannical majority“.
Thoreau agreed that he should pay the price of his actions of not paying his tax by going to jail. He believed that if other patriotic good citizens joined together and also refused to pay their tax, that they, a small number of powerless individuals could lead a very efficient protest.
Again Thoreau questioned “Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them or shall we endeavor to amend them and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?“ His answer to that question “Break the law.“
Mohandas Gandhi was born in 1869 in India. He was born a Hindu and lived as a Hindu. He was married off by his parents as was the custom at the age of 13. When Gandhi finished high school he was sent to England for legal training. India was part of the British Empire. He returned to India with a law degree. Two years later in 1893 he moved to South Africa to be a legal advisor. At that time South Africa was also part of the British Empire. As part of the empire both India and South Africa were ruled by the white Europeans and non-whites were treated inferior. Gandhi saw this as being unjust.
One day Gandhi bought a first class ticket to ride the train. When he showed the conductor he was told and then forced to sit in the baggage car. this did not sit well with Gandhi.
Soon after the Congress of South Africa was going to pass a bill that would deny Indians the right to vote. Gandhi organized a protest against it which got excellent results. The protest unified the Indian people, yet the bill became law. The Indians really didn’t have any defense against the British except through petitions.
The British then proposed a new bill that would require all Indians to register and carry identification with them at all times. Gandhi asked every Indian to join together in disobedience of the law if it was passed. Gandhi warned “it is not at all impossible that we might have to endure every hardship that we can imagine and wisdom lies in pledging ourselves on the understanding that we shall have to suffer all that and worse“.
“Satyagraha” was the name given to the resistance, it is Indian for “the force contained in truth and love“ or non-violent resistance. Gandhi said “Non-violence is in all sided sword, that blesses him who uses it and him against whom it is used, without drawing a drop of blood.“
The registration bill passed and only a few Indians turned out to register. Gandhi was put in jail for two months. More and more Indians resisted and were jailed and the jails became overcrowded. The British called Gandhi to a meeting and a compromise was reached and all prisoners were released. However South Africa‘s Prime Minister, General Smuts did not want to follow Britain’s compromise and continued imposing restrictions.
Gandhi developed a plan and warned the South African government of his intentions. On August 16, 1908 Gandhi collected and burned over 2000 registration certificates in a dramatic ceremony unifying the Indian people and drawing great publicity.
Gandhi was jailed along with many other Indians. In prison Gandhi read Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience and the line which says, “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.“
Constant pressure by the Satyagrahas forced the British to lift the restrictions on the Indian immigrants. But general Smuts continued to be uncooperative with England and imposed new restrictions and taxes on the Indian people.
Gandhi planned another protest this time organizing Indians to illegally cross territorial lines to be arrested. call miners joined the protest. Gandhi and many protesters were arrested and jailed. Word got back to England. They set up a committee to investigate the Indian situation in South Africa. Gandhi wanted some Indians to be on the committee but was refused. Gandhi planned another strike. General Tso’s smarts called a conference. A compromise was reached and many restrictions and taxes were lifted on the Indian people. The Indian people of South Africa were once doubtful but Gandhi gave them unity. “Morality“, Gandhi said, was the key. He used this key to open the door for freedom to all Indians in South Africa.
Gandhi returned to India with the goal of helping to free India from British rule. The Indian national Congress, the outlet for planning for the Indian people, was useless because of too much interior confusion. They looked to Gandhi for help.
Gandhi called for a 24 hour strike, where all activity by the Indians would stop. The strike occurred but there were some rioting and shootings in Delhi. Gandhi called off his continued Satyagraha plans. The British announced a proclamation that Indians could not gather publicly. A group unaware of the new proclamation imposing restrictions, gathered together. 50 soldiers armed with guns and 75 more with knives closed in on the Indians and open fired. The British soldiers killed 379 people and wounded 1137. The officer in charge wrote a report stating that he had done the right thing. This shocked India. In addition The British imposed the “crawling order“. This was the result of an Indian mob attacking an English woman. The crawling order was an ordinance that all Indians that passed this place were to crawl on all hands and knees. These actions by the British united the Indian population in Satyagraha aims.
Gandhi proposed non-cooperation! He told the Indian people not to wear English clothes, not to send children to British schools, and not to use the English language.
Gandhi‘s plan put a close to many British textile factories and large numbers of the British people were out of work. Many arrests were made. But a situation occurred where Indians murdered 22 policemen. Gandhi called off the mass civil disobedience. The Indians thought Gandhi was crazy, but all went along with what he said. Gandhi knew that non-violence could become violent and he worked hard to keep control of the movement.
The British blamed Gandhi and arrested him and placed him in jail. When Gandhi went to court to defend himself he stated “non-cooperation with evil, is as much a duty as is cooperation with good“. Gandhi was given a six year jail sentence. In less than two years of his prison term he got a case of appendicitis and was treated and let out of prison.
The Indian people believed that non-cooperation was a failure and lost confidence in Gandhi.
In 1928 the British government in India had a monopoly on salt manufacturing and made it a law that to possess salt was a crime. Gandhi went back into action. Gandhi warned the government of his civil disobedient intentions.
Gandhi and his followers marched 200 miles to the sea to get salt. Thousands of followers joined the march and people all over the world followed the march in the newspapers.
The British police went into action.Gandhi encouraged every Indian to break the law. About 60,000 offenders were put in jail.
Gandhi then warned of his plan to raid a salt plant. The salt plant was surrounded by a ditch filled with water and a barbed wire fence and 400 police.
Columns of marchers came and were clubbed on the head. they did not defend themselves. The columns kept coming. There were 320 injured and two had died.
News got back to Britain. The people of England wanted Gandhi set free and for India to become free and independent.
Gandhi went to England to meet with the British rulers. Nothing was accomplished but God did gain the hearts of the British people. Candy went back to India and said he was going to lead a new campaign. He was again put in jail.
The British then announced that they wanted separate elections for the Hindus of India and the untouchables of India. Gandhi opposed this for it would further separate all the people of India.
Gandhi announced from prison that he would fast until death if the Hindus and untouchables did not join together in peace. The Hindus and untouchable leaders got together and signed an agreement to do away with separate elections. This went to England and they agreed. Not to have separate elections. After five days of fasting Gandhi had succeeded in uniting the people again.
Gandhi was released from prison in 1933 and suspended the mass campaign of civil disobedience but urged individuals to continue with non-cooperation. Over the next seven years Gandhi focused on trying to unite the Hindus with the untouchables with the Muslims.
In 1945 Clement Atlee the new Prime Minister of England announced it would give India independence as soon as it solved its own internal problems. It was a question of Muslims versus Hindus. Violence erupted. Gandhi tried to help but failed to unite the two religions. In 1947 Gandhi and other leaders met. Gandhi wanted one nation and the other leaders wanted separate nations dividing Muslims and Hindus. Gandhi lost the debate. On August 15, 1947 India became free as two nations, a Hindu India and a Muslin Pakistan. Gandhi fasted for unity. After six days the leaders of the Hindus and Muslims assured him that there would be no more harassment between the two groups. Soon however they broke that promise.
On January 30, 1948 Gandhi was assassinated on his way to a prayer meeting.
The following additions were made in 2020.
Henry David Thoreau laid the philosophical foundation for civil disobedience. Mohandas Gandhi built upon that foundation and added non-cooperation tactics. Thoreau and Gandhi were deeply committed to non-violence. They knew that violence feeds violence.They believed that civil disobedience, non-violence, passive resistance, non-cooperation and peaceful protesting were the best ways to change injustice, oppression and violence committed by people and governments in power.
The morality of peace, love and kindness are ultimately more powerful than unjust laws and the abuse of power by tyranny and tyrants.
In reviewing my 1968 report, I went back to Thoreau’s original civil disobedience essay. In it, Thoreau writes about the act of voting.
Voting is a key ingredient to democracy. It is supposedly how leaders are elected and laws are made. America’s revolutionary war was fought over voting rights. “No taxation without representation“. The constitution, “we the people“ has much to say about voting. The abolitionists and the Civil War were fought to set slaves free and eventually give them the right to vote. The women’s suffrage movement was all about the right for women to vote. Gandhi peacefully fought for voting rights in South Africa and India. Martin Luther king used civil disobedience to expand and protect voting rights for African-Americans.
Voting is vital to a healthy democracy. In our present day America, the right to vote is being threatened. Restrictions are being placed on voting. Voter ID laws are being imposed. Voting hours are being reduced. Polling places are being reduced. Voter suppression and intimidation is happening in insidious ways.
And then we have gerrymandered voting districts and the supreme court ruling giving corporations the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections ( Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission).
And to make matters worse, we have politicians acting criminally to corrupt and rig elections.
We often hear that “every vote counts“, “all votes need to be counted“, “ your vote can make a difference“. But really, what is the value of your one vote these days?
The following is what Thoreau wrote about voting in his essay civil disobedience. He begins by addressing the issues of slavery and the war with Mexico.
“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 then 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 ladder would be harmless.”
“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...”
“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...”
“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 about that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. It’s 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, but wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.”
“Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merrily, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.”
To cast your vote once every four years to elect the president or to go to the polls once every two years to vote for a representative, is the very least a person can do as a citizen to change the world. Even, even if you have to stand in line for five hours in order to vote.
Each of us is capable of doing much much more to change the world for the better than just casting an occasional vote. Thoreau and Gandhi advocated and set examples for using our whole being for being the change we want to see happening in our world.
Each one of us can change the world if we cast our votes with our whole being.