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Thoreau's Critique of Democracy
Author(s): Leigh Kathryn JencoReviewed work(s):Source: The Review of Politics, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Summer, 2003), pp. 355-381Published by: Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review ofPoliticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1408930 .Accessed: 14/02/2012 10:49Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspJSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.Cambridge University Press and University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review of Politics arecollaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Review of Politics.http://www.jstor.org
Thoreau's Critique of Democracy
Leigh Kathryn Jenco
Most commentators see Henry David Thoreau's political essays as an
endorsement of liberal democracy, but this essay holds that Thoreau's critique of
majoritarianism and his model of civil disobedience may intend something much
more radical: when his criticisms of representative democracy are articulated in more
formal terms of political and moral obligation, it becomes clear that the theory and
practice of democracy fundamentally conflict with Thoreau's conviction in moral
autonomy and conscientious action. His critical examination of the way in which a
democratic state threatens the commitments that facilitate and give meaning to the
practice of morality intends to reorient the focus of politics, away from institutions
and toward the people such institutions were ostensibly in place to serve. His critique
stands as a warning that becoming complacent about democracy will inhibit the search
for better (perhaps more liberal) ways to organize political life.
Most recent scholarship on Henry David Thoreau's political
thought places him firmly within the liberal-democratic camp.'
There are good reasons for this: Thoreau embodies more famously
than any American writer the spirit of freedom and individualism
that seems to animate liberal democracy, and his act of "civil
disobedience" continues to inspire modern-day political activists
to conscientious, public-spirited activity in an affirmation of the
democratic way of life.2 The problem with this interpretation,
I wish to thank Danielle Allen, Shelley Burtt, Chad Cyrenne, Jacob Levy, Michael
Lienesch, Dimitriy Masterov, and Chris Planer, in addition to the participants of the
University of Chicago's Political Theory Workshop and the anonymous readers for The
Review for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. The writing of the
essay was made possible in part by a fellowship from the Institute for Humane Studies.
1. Nancy Rosenblum's original reflections on "Thoreau's Militant Conscience,"
(PoliticalT heory9 [1981]:8 1-110)a re reconciledt o a theoryo f liberald emocracyi n her
book AnotherL iberalismR:o manticisman dt heR econstructioonfL iberaTl hough(tC ambridge:
HarvardU niversityP ress,1 987),a nd in her introductiont o Thoreau'sP oliticalW ritings
(Cambridge:C ambridgeU niversityP ress,1 996).G eorgeK ateb'sb ook TheI nnerO cean:
Individualisman d DemocratiCc ulture( Ithaca:C omell University Press, 1992)i dentifies
Thoreau as an embodiment of the ideals of modem representative democracy. Recent
scholarshipb y Brian Walker( "Thoreau'sA lterative Economics:W ork,L iberty,a nd
Democratic Cultivation," American Political Science Review 92 [1998]: 845-856; and
"Thoreauo n DemocraticC ultivation,"P oliticaTl heory2 9 [2001]:1 55-189)b uilds on this
theme by reading Walden as a "democratic self-help book."
2. Unfortunately, the term "civil disobedience" has been appropriated in service
of a variety of political agendas, ranging from that of Martin Luther King Jr. to Gandhi
to the New Left. The invocation of Thoreau's act and accompanying essay in these
contexts has harnessed both with connotations Thoreau did not intend; mass
demonstrations, for example, are perceived as constitutive of and necessary to this
type of political action. As I hope this paper will make clear, Thoreau is better identified
with the more solitary and anarchist tradition of "civil disobedience" emblematized
by Antigone's embrace of moral over political law.
however, is that it fails to take seriously how deeply Thoreau's
numerous and overt criticisms of democracy, and his exhortations
to transcend it, are grounded in a deontological moral philosophy
that renders impossible the mediation of justice through democratic
institutions. This is overlooked even by those commentators who
interpret Thoreau's disgust with government and majority rule a
bit more literally. Most deny that his political essays provide
anything more than an interesting statement of his own personal
commitments, whose criteria for legitimacy cannot be applied
realistically to society as a whole.3 In this article I instead read
Thoreau's political project as an exercise in criticism, making a
serious effort to understand Thoreau as he understood himself: as
a poet and critic who pointed out with more coherence than is
usually acknowledged the incompatibility of representative
democracy with his fundamental moral commitments. In so doing,
I do not intend to entirely vindicate Thoreau's political views so
much as I hope to illuminate his insights about moral and political
obligation that remain obscured on a democratic reading, and from
there point to the contribution he can make in accounting for the
real but often overlooked costs incurred by democracy.4
Thoreau's radical responses to conflicts of political and moral
obligation-his controversial support for the abolitionist John
Brown, his public denunciation of the Fugitive Slave Law, and his
refusal to pay the poll tax in protest over the war in Mexico and the
slavery issue-are usually interpreted as criticisms meant only to
reform the hollowness of contemporary democratic practice. I argue,
however, that Thoreau's own explanations for these acts reveal
a much deeper concern that the theory and practice of democracy
3. For the strongest statement of this view, see Vincent Buranelli, "The Case
Against Thoreau," Ethics 67 (uly, 1957): 257-68. Heinz Eulau ("Wayside Challenger:
Some Remarks on the Politics of Henry David Thoreau,"i n ThoreauA: Collectiono f
Critical Essays, ed. Sherman Paul [Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1962]) and
Charles A. Madison ("Henry David Thoreau: Transcendental Individualist," Ethics
54 [anuary 1944]: 110-23) agree that his politics lead ultimately to "a blind alley."
More sympathetically, Philip Abbott claims that Thoreau's preoccupation with
finding his own identity grounds a political ethic that, while compelling, is simply
unrealizable by others: see "Henry David Thoreau, the State of Nature, and the
Redemption of Liberalism,"J ournalo f Politics4 7 (1985):1 82-208.
4. Before I proceed I should point out that by "democracy" I mean its modem
liberal-representative version, because this is the form Thoreau is usually assumed
to embrace. This definition, moreover, presents the greatest challenge to my
argument since I also acknowledge that Thoreau's liberalism, coupled with his
principled dislike of structured political participation, would prohibit him from
endorsing other, more thoroughgoing forms-an assumption usually invoked to
link Thoreau's political project with representative democratic institutions.
356 THE REVIEWO F POLITICS
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 357
itself, not just democracyi n its currentm anifestationt, hreatent he
commitments that facilitate moral practice in our personal lives.
By pointing out that such a system renders our voluntary responsibilities
to ourselves and to our neighbors less compelling and
meaningfulT, horeauin dictsd emocracyf ori ncurringr ealc ostst hat,
tragically perhaps, cannot be resolved by the system that created
them. Thoreau does embrace the liberal values that he has come to
symbolize for many-free expression, civil disobedience, the liberty
to follow one's conscience-but he provokes questions about
the extent to which these values should or even can survive embedded
within a democraticm atrix.
His two main points of criticism address the failure of the government
to secure true consent, and the inadequacy of its
representativcea pabilityT. horeau'sc riticismsa rep hrasedi n terms
familiar to a democratic conception of government, but this does
not mean that he endorses the ideals of the democratic project.
Rather, he consistently portrays the democratic regime as a force
that polarizes mind and body, disrespects the right in favor of the
democraticp rocess,a nd substituteso fficesa nd institutionsf or the
actionso f men.T hiss uggestst hatd emocraticr eadingso f Thoreau's
work, most prominently those of Nancy Rosenblum and George
Kateb, pay insufficient attention to the crucial relationship of his
only stated moral obligation, what Thoreau called the "perception
and performance of right," to his political thought. By insisting,
moreover,t hat democracy'sl iberalv arianti s capableo f assuaging
Thoreau's objections because it enables him to be left alone, these
thinkers fail to grapple with Thoreau's larger challenge: "Is a democracy,
such as we know it, the last improvement possible in
government?I s it not possiblet o takea step furthert owardsr ecognizing
and organizing the rights of man?"5
I beginm y analysisb y situatingT horeau'ws orkw ithini ts intellectuala
nd historicalc ontext,i n ordert o makec leart he singularity
of his approacht o politics.I go on to identifyh is precisec riticismso f
representativde emocracyb y tying them to moref ormalc ategories
of political and moral obligation-a vocabulary that helps explain
why Thoreau'sc riticismso f the state are also necessarilyc riticisms
of representatived emocracya, nd points the way to more refined
definitionso f the termsh e employs.I will thenb e bettere quippedi n
the last sectiont o sketcha tentativep ictureo f Thoreau'sv ision for a
5. Thoreau, "Resistance to Civil Government," in Henry David Thoreau, Political
Writings, ed. Nancy Rosenblum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996),
pp. 20-21. All following citations of Thoreau's political essays refer to this edition
unless otherwise noted.
just polity, and to gesture toward the kind of insight into political life
we stand to gain from properly understanding Thoreau's political
criticisms-criticisms which, while somewhat utopian, remain compelling
in their insistence that the best kind of politics maintains the
integrity of its citizens' moral commitments.
Thoreau's Moral Philosophy
Thoreau's essay "Resistance to Civil Government"6 introduces
his most complete model of action from principle, "the perception
and performance of right." His pairing of perception and
performance implies that one cannot neglect the duty to do what is
right any more than one can neglect the duty to ascertain what that
right is. Thoreau grounds this morality in an epistemologically
obscure higher law, belief in which is a major component of the
Transcendentalist project initiated by his friend and mentor, Ralph
Waldo Emerson.7 Emerson's essays explain higher law as a kind of
spiritual symbolism imparted by nature from which man should
properly derive his moral understanding. "All things are moral,
and in their boundaries changes have an unceasing reference to
spiritual nature... [Every change] shall hint or thunder to man the
laws of right and wrong, and echo the Ten Commandments."8
A major tenet of the higher law philosophy is that nature refines
man's understanding by revealing specific moral truths, and
6. The usual title given this essay is "Civil Disobedience." But despite Mohandas
K. Gandhi's attribution of this term to Thoreau, Thoreau himself never uses the
term anywhere in any of his works. When given as a lecture at the Concord Lyceum
on 26 January 1848, the essay was titled "On the Relation of the Individual to the
State"; its published title (in Elizabeth Peabody's Aesthetic Papers) is "Resistance to
Civil Government." Only after Thoreau was dead for four years did the essay assume
the title that finally stuck. Since the original (and only authorized) published title
suggests that Thoreau's essay placed more weight on examining the responsibilities
of an individual in responding to government activity than on the institutionalization
of the act as a standard of democratic conduct, I have retained it here. For more on
this history see Wendell Glick's exhaustive textual commentary in The Writings of
Henry David ThoreauR: eformP apers( Princeton:P rinceton University Press, 1973),
pp. 313-21;a nd WalterH arding, TheV ariorumC ivilD isobedienc(eN ew York:T wayne
Publishers, 1967), p. 59 n.l.
7. Edward Madden identifies the major elements of Transcendentalism as
"German romanticism [via Coleridge], a distinction between Reason and
Understanding, a basic optimism about human nature, and a general commitment
to intuitionism as a theory of knowledge" (Civil Disobediencea nd Moral Law in
Nineteenth-CenturyA mericanP hilosophy[ Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1968], p. 8).
8. Ralph WaldoE merson," Nature,"T heS electedW ritingso f RalphW aldoE merson,
ed. Brooks Atkinson (New York: Moder Library, 1950), p. 23.
358 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 359
disciplinesh is reasonb y revealingt he holisticc orrespondenceb etween
thought and things. All are fragments of the divine, and each
one implies all others and the whole.9 The higher law directs the
outwarda ppearanceo f nature,a nd naturei tselfa cts as a metaphor
describing an individual's place within the universe and the ongoing
and inevitablei nteractiono f substancea nd concept,b ody and
mind, that manifest within that individual. Again and again in
Walden-thew orki n whichT horeauo ffersh is mostc ompletem odel
of a life of principle-he affirmst he Transcendentalisdte pendence
of moralu nderstandingo n the laws made manifestt hroughc areful
scrutinyo f the naturalw orld.10" WhatI have observed of the
pond is no less true in ethics," Thoreau observes.
If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the
description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at
that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not,
of course,b y nay confusiono r irregularityin Nature,b ut by our ignorance
of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony
are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the
harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting,
but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more
wonderful."
In Thoreau's mind, the individual is responsible both for uncovering
these "higher laws" of nature and for employing them to
evaluatea nd directh is conduct.D isagreementsa nd moralc onflicts
within a community of people living in accord with these laws are
impossible: as nature is harmonized, so too will be the conscientiousa
ctionsd erivedf romn aturalo bservationT. hee xerciseo f one's
9. Madden, Civil Disobediencea nd Moral Law, p. 88. This synergy was first
explicated by Theodore Parker in his Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion, bk
2, chaps. 6-8 (Boston: Rufus Leighton, Jr., 1859). For a more detailed philosophical
history of Transcendentalism, see Harold Clark Goddard, Studies in New England
Transcendentalism(N ew York:H illary House Publishers, 1960).
10. See for example Thoreau, Waldeni, n Waldena nd OtherW ritings,e d. Joseph
Wood Krutch (New York: Bantam Books, 1962), pp. 320, 325, 339. Far from
embodyingt hed uplicitousc ombinatioonf violenta ntagonisma ndm orali nnocence
thatN ancyR osenblum(A notheLr iberalismpe)r ceivesT horeau'ms ilitantc onscience
as forcing upon the natural world, nature stands most prominently in Thoreau's
works as a manifestation of the higher law.
11. Thoreau, Walden, p. 319. Thoreau's essay "The Natural History of
Massachusetts"w as commissionedb y Emersont o explore how the concrete
particularso f naturec ould yield principleso f the generala nd universal.I n that
essayT horeaun otes," Them erelyp oliticala specto f the land is not very cheering;
men are degraded when considered as the members of a political organization."
See TheT ranscendentalistAs:n Anthology,e d. PerryM iller (Cambridge,M A: Harvard
University Press, 1950), pp. 324-25.
sense of right, if truly in accord with natural, higher laws, is incapable
of infringing the same exercise on the part of someone else.
"I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the
one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey
their own laws ... till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys
the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and
so a man."12
Once the individual conscience recognizes this law, its moral
authorityi s bindinga nd irrevocableo n all matters.W hilea distinction
can logically be made between the dictates of authority and the
requirementos f obligation-a terminologicahl edge manyp hilosopherse
mploy,i ronicallyt,o justifya primaf acie obligationt o obey
state laws-Thoreau does not recognize this distinction because to
know the higher law is to recognize an obligation to obey it.'3 This
is what Thoreau means by "action from principle."
By emphasizing personal regard for "right" over demands to
act for the "common good," Thoreau establishes the individual as
the only sourceo f morala uthorityT. his reducesa ll potentiallyp olitical
obligations to moral ones, an identity that informs his
perception of political authority as an extension of the moral authorityo
f personsn, ot rules, laws, institutions,o r traditions.1H4 e
derides the U.S. governmentf or being a "tradition"m erely,l acking
entirely the vitality of even a single living man; it is not the
laws of the nation that make men just, but vice-versa.15
Many commentatorso n Thoreauh ave remarkedt hat the inherent
subjectivityo f Thoreau'sc onscience-basedc onsent to law
cannots ustain universala pplicabilityR. osenbluma sserts that for
Thoreau "conscience has no identifiable content,"and as such is
unablet o "createn ew social normso r inspires ociabler elations."16
This echoes the usual protest that using one's private conscience as
a political guide would result in anarchy or worse, as no justifica-
12. Thoreau, "Resistance,"p . 14. Rosenblum, "MilitantC onscience,"p . 94, cites
this passage as evidence of Thoreau's celebration of competition and antagonism
in nature. I think it more reasonable to assume (especially in the context of Thoreau's
other nature writings and the beliefs of his fellow Transcendentalists) that his
mention of the trees is a simple reiteration of his conviction that nature impels all
the elements within it, especially and including man, to "obey their own laws."
13. He does not, however, recognize a political obligation as a necessarily moral
obligation. The distinction between political and moral obligations is dealt with
more fully later in the paper.
14. Thoreau, "Resistance," pp. 10,13, 17. Here and throughout the paper I use
the term "politics" and all its derivatives simply to identify that which involves, or
exists as a condition of, the institution and affairs of government.
15. Thoreau, "Resistance," pp. 1-2.
16. Rosenblum, "Thoreau's Militant Conscience," pp. 98, 100-101.
360 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 361
tion could be given for public behavior or injurious actions toward
other individuals, nor could any vision of a public (i.e., interpersonal)
good be conjured.17 It is important to point out, however,
that Thoreau himself brooked no questions on this point. As he
understood it, conviction in the higher law would not encourage
arbitraryju stificationf or any behavior,b ut insteadw ould present
very strict ethical standards that, while accessible only to individuals,
neverthelessc ouldb e expectedt o convergem ucht he samew ay
as he observedt he laws of naturet o do. Whiled isagreementsm ay
arise, Thoreau maintains the somewhat naive confidence that "the
faintesta ssuredo bjectionw hicho ne healthym anf eelsw ill at length
prevail over mankind."18
Thoreau's appeal to higher law in making antistatist
arguments actually follows a pattern of political criticism
pioneered by many of his contemporaries, who, like Thoreau,
believed that the key to reforming society was the reform of
individuals.M anyo f the radicala bolitionistsw ith whom Thoreau
associated either personally or intellectually19su bscribed to an
ideal of self-governmentth atd erivedf romP uritana ntinomianism,
which held that both knowledge of and capacity for implementing
God's law was implanted in every individual. This doctrine upheld
the importanceo f a personalr elationshipw ith God so vehemently
that its believers accorded socially directed reform no leverage.
These reformers instead promoted an ideal of individual
accountabilitya, nd some, most famouslyW illiamL loydG arrison,
sought to persuade others through the formation of societies and
communities organized around these principles. Others promoted
more directly political agendas; for example, Beriah Green's "anti-
17. See Michael Walzer,O bligationsE: ssayso n DisobedienceW, ara nd Citizenship
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 129. "For what is lost when
morality becomes 'merely personal' is ... the sharing of moral knowledge, the sense
of Another's presence, the connection of the individual to a universal order." He
denies that a subjective sense of right can involve any meaningful sense of
responsibility (p. 22). However, I fail to see why a methodologically individualist
understanding of values precludes moral interactions with others, or how a
conviction in a higher, "universal" order or law can possibly relieve one of moral
responsibility.
18. Thoreau, Walden, pp. 265, 267. This sentiment is echoed throughout other
his other works; e.g. "Slavery in Massachusetts," p. 127.
19. For more details on Thoreau's association with the abolitionist movement
see Frank Sanbor, The Life of Henry David Thoreau (Boston, 1917), pp. 466-469;
Wendell Glick, "Thoreau and Radical Abolitionism" (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern
University, 1950); John C. Broderick, "Thoreau, Alcott, and the Poll Tax," Studies in
Philology 53 (1956): 612-26.
political political theory" advocated the replacement of democratic
practice with elitist leadership.20
Thoreau is quick to distance himself from these "no-government
men" in his essay "Resistance to Civil Government," but apparently
for reasons outside of their skeptical attitude toward the state sinceas
the essay's title suggests-Thoreau harbors such sentiment himself.
Where Garrison calls for a repudiation of all earthly authority,
Thoreau calls "not for no government, but at once a better government,"
which denies not the possibility of a just government, but the
legitimacy of the present regime. In affirming the res privata-insisting
that he has "better affairs to attend to" than politics-Thoreau
recognizes the importance (and vulnerability) of a private space independent
of state or society, and this makes him particularly
sensitive to the fact that the planned communities and religious political
theories of Garrison and his followers left no room for a
discernable private space or a nonpolitical identity. In the view of
these reformers, the government of society is necessarily self-government
and vice-versa. Thoreau, on the other hand, accepts the need
for a government mechanism in order to make his life less political.
Leaving however minimal a governmental machine to clink along
relieves individuals of the responsibility of being involved in government
at all.
The way in which Thoreau championed private life was
unique even among his fellow Transcendentalists, many of
whom were unable to find a way out of the paradox that emerged
from promoting individual freedom simultaneously with searching
for a perfect community.21 Thoreau's commitment to a
methodologically individualist moral epistemology would be
undercut if he followed either the Christian anarchists or the
more socially minded Transcendentalists in presuming to plan
the social order. His organic vision of social and political harmony
was more similar to Emerson's, but the same belief in the
higher law that provoked such radical political ideas in his
protege amounted in Emerson's case to a kind of faith that things
20. An exhaustive survey of these reformers and the variety of political
programs they formulatedc an be found in Lewis Perry,R adicaAl bolitionismA: narchy
and the Governmenot f Godi n AntislaveryT hought( Ithaca:C orell University Press,
1973), pp. 36-45; 174. For a focus on Transcendentalist movements, see Richard
Francis,T ranscendentaUlt opiasI: ndividualitya ndC ommunitya t BrookF arm,F ruitlands,
and Walden (Ithaca: Corell University Press, 1997).
21. Richard Francis, TranscendentaUl topias,p . x. Francis portrays Thoreau's
mission as a replacement of the totality with an individual, and interprets
Thoreau's hut at Walden pond as symbolic of the fundamental unit of his
community (p. 227).
362 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 363
will right themselves.2 Emerson did criticize democracy, but not
on fundamental grounds. Emerson's concern is simply that democracy
as it is now practiced does not penetrate the American
consciousness as deeply nor motivate it as profoundly as it may
originally have promised to do.23 Thoreau's outlook is at once
more militant and more morally centered. In criticizing the moral
damage produced by the democratic process, Thoreau parts
company with both contemporary social reformers and his mentor
Emerson. In what follows I hope to show that Thoreau's
political thought is best understood as an innovative and unique
attempt to expose the way in which democratic institutions inevitably
and improperly conflate individual morality with
political obligation.
Thoreau's Criticisms
Thoreau'sc onvictioni n the morali mportanceo f taking" action
fromp rinciple"im pelsh im to challengea nyp oliticalo rderi n which
moral authority is vested even partially in another group or individual.
24H is criticismsc arrye specialw eight for democracys, ince
the decision-makingp rerogativea nd the morala uthorityt hat his
higher law philosophy holds to rest exclusively in the individual
must give way to the expediency of voting and political representation,
especially in democracy's more "liberal" forms. Thoreau
responds to this moral crisis by committing several acts of "civil
disobedience,"h is explanationsf orw hich promptu s to investigate
the degreet o which the only duty Thoreaua rticulatest, he duty to
perceivea nd performr ight,c an supportp oliticalo bligations,e specially
those which representatived emocracyi mposes.
22. Emerson repeatedly expresses confidence that the laws of Nature act
persistently to bring humanity back to the moral track. See especially his essay
"Compensation," The Selected Writings, p.174.
23. For example, he complains that the political candidates currently running
for office "have not at heart the ends which give to the name of democracy what
hope and virtue are in it." Emerson, "Politics," The Selected Writings, p. 428. In his
journals Emerson derided Thoreau's radicalism, and criticized him for his refusal
to admit of concerted moral action: "If I knew only Thoreau, I should think
cooperation of good men impossible. Must we always talk for victory, and never
once for truth, comfort, and joy?" Emerson'sJ ournalsI, X, p. 498. Cited in Madden,
Civil Disobediencae nd MoralL aw,p . 90.
24. William Earle rightly identifies it as a question of moral resolution to a
moral conflict between public law and private conscience ("Some Paradoxes of
Private Conscience as a Political Guide," Ethics 80 [1970]: 306-12), p. 306. See also
Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism (New York: Harper and Row, 1976),
especially pp. 18-19.
The only government that Thoreau recognizes "is that power
which establishes justice in the land." By his definition not only must
the government's acts be consistent with justice, but its mechanism
also should be constructed so as to promote it actively. When the
state, that organ ostensibly invested with such a power, fails to execute
it properly, private citizens are forced to perform its offices. Thoreau
in fact identified the anti-slavery Vigilant Committees as serving just
such a purpose.25A proper government and the protection of justice
are inseparable for Thoreau; one logically entails the other. Under a
perfectly just state, of the kind Thoreau envisions, acting according
to principle would be functionally equivalent to obeying the law.
This does not imply, however, that the government can or should
determine the content of justice, what justice is, because we have
already seen above that such knowledge is accessible only to an
individual through her conscientious study of higher law. In fact, to
establish what justice is and to enact it through a "life of principle" is
an individual's only moral duty.26
In his political writings Thoreau contrasts this holistic ideal with
the reality of the state: he identifies state authority with simple coercive
force, which is effective in controlling only the corporeal, not
the conscientious, element of the individuals subject to it.
[T]he State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or
moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or
honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced.
I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. They
only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become
like themselves. I do not hear of men beingforced to live this way or that by
masses of men. What sort of life were that to live?.... I am not responsible
for the successful working of the machinery of society.7
Here Thoreau draws attention to the way in which the disparity
between political and moral obligation is manifested as physical
separation and moral displacement. The unilateral use of physical
coercion is both necessary and sufficient for the enforcement of
political obligations, but this confused reliance on purely physical
power is at odds with the holistically perceived higher law that
grounds Thoreau's moral duty. Thoreau confronts the reality of his
imprisonment using language that indicates how jarring he finds
25. Thoreau, "A Plea for Captain John Brown," p. 151.
26. Thoreau recognizes the need for attributing the government with penal
power, but seems to believe that those who violate the higher law will themselves
recognize the justice in their punishment: "the murderer always knows that he is
justly punished" (ibid., p. 156).
27. Thoreau, "Resistance," 14.
364 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 365
the contrast to be: "I could not help but being struck with the foolishness
of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh
and blood and bones,t o be lockedu p."O n this point,T horeau'sa ct
can be interestingly and illuminatingly contrasted to the civil disobedienceu
ndertakenb y MartinL utherK ing,J r.a nd his followers.
ToD r.K ing,t heirp rotestw as as "display"": we would presento ur
very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of
the local and nationalc ommunity."2F8o r Thoreau,h owever, presenting
only a body as an appeal to conscience is completely
antithetical to maintaining the integrity of his moral code. In
Thoreau'sa ct of civil disobedience,b odily displayw as an unnatural
consequence of a vicious political system, not a deliberate
political statement.29
This theme of displacement and separation is replicated in
Thoreau's treatment of elections, which he points out intrinsically
alienate moral actors both from their own conscientiously determined
conceptiono f what is right,a nd fromt heirr esponsibilityf or
arriving at and implementing that conception.
All voting is a sort of gaming, like chequers 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 that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the
majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even
votingfor the right is doing nothing for it.30
Thoreau's characterization of all voting as a betting game
betrays a profound disgust with the participatory requirements
constitutive of liberal democracy. He recognizes that majoritydetermined
outcomes wither the vitality of the private conscience
28. King, "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," reprinted in Bedau, Civil
Disobediencep, . 74. In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, King phrases
this display of bodies in religious terms: the protesters are "witnesses to the truth
as [they] see it." Quoted in Carl Cohen, Civil DisobedienceC: onscience,T actics,a nd
the Law (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 40.
29. In her article "Civil Disobedience," (Crises of the Republic [New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1969]), p. 60, Hannah Arendt dismisses Thoreau's actions
as inherently unpolitical, since they are private actions taken merely to free himself
from evil. The basis for her judgment is the equation of conscientious action with
mere opinion separated from the bodily action that would have public consequences.
However, Thoreau intended his act to demonstrate that only private, conscientious
action can avoid the false dichotomy between body and mind; taking action
according to the rules and laws of the public realm alienates one's mindful, moral
responsibility from the body it inhabits.
30. Thoreau, "Resistance," p. 6.
366 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
because the individual's compliance to rules and procedures one
had no hand in formulating necessarily disrupts the ongoing
processo f committingo neself to doing what is right.31E ven those
who activelyd isagreew ithint he politicals ystemr epresentn othing
more than nominal support for their cause, however justified: "A
minority is powerless when it conforms to the majority; it is not
even a minority then." Its influence is completely undermined
when it agrees to abide by the outcome of a vote. Only when
conscientious individuals in the minority choose to act as Thoreau
has can they become an "irresistible"fo rce by clogging the state
mechanism with their true weight.32
His remarks go beyond a mere criticism of the abuses of the
system. Thoreau strikes at the very core principles of democracy,
realizing that the sacrifice of an individual's moral interests to the
vagarieso f representationa nd voting is moralt yranny.T he representatives
who make the laws, which in a democracy carry the
authorityo f self-rule,a reu ndern o obligationt o representy our true
interests;33a s such the rules that they agree upon will not and cannot
reflectt he sense of rightw hich in Thoreau'sm ind is accessible
and meaningfuoln ly to individualst hemselves." Whoeverh as discerned
truth, has received his commission from a higher source
than the chiefest justice in the world, who can discern only law. He
finds himself constituted judge of the judge."34
In his John Brown papers, Thoreau expands his criticism of
democracyb y bringingt he representativesy stem to task for its incapacity
to acquire anything more than the externals of consent,
man's" bodies,"n ot "then oblestf acultieso f the mind,a nd the whole
heart."35T he distinguishing quality of individuals like John Brown
is precisely that which no system of representationc an capture.
Thoreaup raisesh im for being a true transcendentalist", noty ielding
to whim or transienti mpulse,b ut carryingo ut the purposeo f a
life."36T horeau's comments point out more than just the violence
done to a moral standard when majorities and their proxies are
permittedt o make binding decisions.F or one, representatived e-
31. H. D. Lewis notes the agreement among moral philosophers that virtue
must be cultivated, meaning its practice must be habitual and ongoing. "Obedience
to Conscience," Mind 54 (1945).
32. Thoreau, "Resistance," p. 11. In "A Plea for Captain John Brown," p. 152,
Thoreau asks quite simply, "When were the good and brave ever in a majority?"
33. Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism, p. 29. See also Thoreau, "Slavery in
Massachusetts," p. 132.
34. Thoreau, "Slavery in Massachusetts," p. 128.
35. Thoreau, "A Plea for Captain John Brown," p. 150.
36. Ibid., p. 140.
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 367
mocracy fails to provide adequate methods of moral redress and
frustratest he exerciseo f moral responsibilityb y legally prohibiting
certain actions that are necessary to satisfy a personal sense of
rectitude.B ut the more far-reachingc riticismt hat Thoreaum akes
with his praise of JohnB rowni s that representationadl emocracy
presumes to represent that which can never be represented: the
most moral individuals among us and, by extension, the moral part
of ourselves, "our noble hearts."37B rown's act demonstrates even
morec learlya nd definitivelyt hanT horeau'sc ivil disobediencet hat
the "political"o bligationu nders crutinyh ere is not a mattero f obligationt
o the polis;r atheri,t is an obligationt o one's morals elf that
often implies conflict with political institutions.
Thoreau's Argument
All of Thoreau'sp oliticala cts, most especiallyh is civil disobedience
and his support of John Brown, draw sharp attention to the
conflict of moral obligations with political ones. An exploration of
the formald istinctionb etweent hese two kindso f duties,t hen,m ay
help by providing a vocabulary and conceptual apparatus through
which Thoreau's moral position may be more systematically articulated.
Thoreau himself, of course, did not use such formal
language, but I hope that this exercise will shed some light on exactly
how Thoreau's political criticisms are linked to his moral
theory,a nd give a morec ompletee xplanationo f how his criticisms
can apply to democratic institutions in general, not only to nineteenth-
centuryA mericand emocracyi n particular.
Contemporaryp hilosophicall iteratureo n duties classifiesp olitical
obligations under the larger heading of institutional (also
called positional) duties. John Simmons, following Michael Stocker,
identifies positional duties as those connected with a specific office,
role, or station: they are tied to the specific requirements
attendantt o the occupationo f a particularp osition,n ot to the individuals
qua individuals who happen to fulfill those positions. Such
duties, Simmons holds, are morally neutral, and can never ground
moralr equirementsT. hef ulfillmento f these obligationsi s entailed
merelyb y logical requirement.3F8o re xample,t he institutionalo bligationo
f promise-keepingim pliest hato ne logically" hast o"c arry
37. "The few who talk about his vindictive spirit, while they really admire his
heroism, have no test by which to detect a noble man, no amalgam to combine with
his pure gold. They mix their own dross with it" (ibid., p. 149).
38. See A. John Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1979) and J. R. Cameron's "'Ought' and Institutional
Obligations," Philosophy4 6 (1971):3 20.
through with what has been promised because this is implied in
the meaning of the term. It is very important to point out, however,
that the actual decision to fulfill the promise or not is derived from
an external and independent moral obligation (in Thoreau's case,
to realize the precepts of higher law.) Thoreau points out the tension
that exists between what one feels morally obliged to do and
what is requiredb y merelyl egal( i.e.,i nstitutionalo) bligationsw hen
he asks, "Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made?
Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are not good?
...What right have you to enter into a compact with yourself that
you will do thus or so, against the light within you?"39
Moradl uties or obligationso, n the otherh and,e xist to establish
standardsf or conductt owardo thers,i ndependentlyo f any institutionals
ettingo r role( althoughi t shouldb e notedt hatt he two duties,
institutionala nd moral,a re not always mutually exclusive.)4A0 ll
legal and political obligations, then, can be articulated as institutional
duties enforced on the populace in their role as citizens of
that state, but as such carry no moral weight in the absence of a
supportingm oralo bligation.4T1h isa rgumenth, owever,d oes more
than point out the conflict between conscience and law that any act
of civil disobedience presumes. Recognizing the limitations on the
morala nd politicalj ustificatoryw ork each kind of obligationc an
do makesT horeau'sc all for a better,j ust governmentm ore intelligible
even as he denies his obligation to obey the law and
enthusiasticallys upportst he anarchisticm ilitancyo f JohnB rown.
Drawing such a distinction between the two kinds of obligations
helps us see why Thoreaui nsistst hato nly the ruleso f moralityn, ot
politicali nstitutionso r laws, arec apableo f settingt he termso f justice
and consent.
For my purposes here, the most relevant insight the distinction
between institutionaal nd morald uties yields is that,w hile institutional
obligations may not themselves generate any moral duty,
they do condition how we expect certain moral duties to be carried
39. Thoreau, "A Plea for Captain John Brown," p. 156.
40. While all moral obligations do rely on certain necessary pre-conditions for
their realization (e.g., most require the presence of another sentient being), these
preconditions do not ground their reasons for fulfillment. Michael Stocker, "Moral
Duties, Institutions, and Natural Facts," The Monist 54 (1970): 610.
41. Simmons, MoralP rinciplesa nd PoliticalO bligationsp, p. 17,24. See also Peter
Singer, Democracya nd Disobedience(O xford:C larendon Press, 1973): "Our ultimate
obligation to obey the law is a moral obligation and not a legal obligation. It cannot
be a legal obligation, for this would lead to an infinite regress-since legal obligations
derive from laws, there would have to be a law that says we must obey the law.
What obligation would there then be to obey this law?" (p.3).
368 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 369
out, and in doing so form a standard of behavior that must be followed
if we do wish to uphold certain moral requirements (of
justness, fairness, etc.) This is because they often provide the specifications-
the socially accepted signals-for how to fulfill moral
duties properly. Michael Stocker uses the example of how violating
an accepted tradition to allow the birthday child an extra piece
of cake on any one occasion would be unjust because given such a
tradition,i t would have been unfairt o deny that particularb irthday
child his or her extrap iece of cake.4G2 ivingt hats lice of cakei s
an institutionala ct performed" undert he auspices"o f a particular
"constitutivec onvention,"w hich defines the establishmento f that
obligation to be (part of) what the act imports or amounts to (fairness,
in this case.)43
In other words, fulfilling the obligation incurred by an institutional
act is simultaneously to acknowledge the meaning of the act
as provided by the constitutive convention that governs it. This
meaning in turn may carry with it particular moral obligations,
and the signification that attaches to an act of voting in a democracye
xemplifiest his kind of moralm ove. The performanceo f this
act signals a willingness, and indeed logically entails a duty, to abide
by the resultso f the election,b ut the act is also undertakenw ith the
understandingth ati ts performancec onstitutes" self-government,"
which in turne mbodiesa particularid ea of justice.
The state is in a very delicate position, then, since by enforcing
particularin stitutionaol bligationsi n the name of protectingj ustice
it risksm isrepresentintgh ep atterno f conductr equiredt o fulfillt hese
institutionaol bligationsa s parto f the individual'sm oraol bligation
to serve justice. This would explain why Thoreau believes that the
governmenti s, ideally,j usta n expedient;4a4ll owingi t any morel eeway
gives it power to dictate the understandings which impart
meaningt o its institutionalo bligations,w hich then may overtake
the moralv alues such institutionsw ere originallym eantt o secure.
Democracy is an especially dangerous threat in this sense because
the politicalo bligationsp articulart o it, like voting and civic
involvement,a re in fact intendedto embody a sense of justice:t hey
begin to resemble (and are asserted by some actually to be) moral
42. Stocker, "Moral Duties," p. 611.
43. Cameron, "'Ought' and Institutional Obligation," p. 311.
44. Simmons would agree with this assessment, noting that there are certain
positive moral duties, like securing justice, that may sometimes require that we
perform the obligations attached to various institutional roles, simply because that
is the most (or sometimes only) efficient way of discharging those duties. "External
Justificationsa nd InstitutionalR oles,"i n Justificationan d LegitimacyE: ssayso n Rights
and Obligations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 95.
370 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
obligations.4U5 sing the vocabularyo f institutionala nd moral duties,
we can articulate Thoreau's criticism of democracy as an
indictment of a system that collapses the two kinds of obligations
into one, makingt he intelligibilityo f "actionf rom principle"i mpossible
to sustain. He is pointing out how the institutional
obligation of obedience to the laws democracy enforces has a necessary
correlationn eithert o the constitutivec onventionsi nvoked
(since, as we have seen above, "voting for the right is doing nothing
for it,"a nd representationd oes not reallyr epresentw hat it should
be representingn) or to the moralo bligationt o serve justicet hat it
adopts as its goal. Indeed, democracy pretends that voting means
consent,a nd thatr epresentationm eanse quality;b y doing so it presents
as moral duties the institutional obligations that are meant
only as expedients to facilitate the fulfillment of those moral duties.
"What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to
moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free,
of which we boast?" Thoreau asks.46 It is the disjunction between
an action and its intended significance especially the wide disparity
between the way justice must be properly sustained, and
the democratic institutions meant to secure (and embody) it-to
which Thoreau's act of civil disobedience, his vehement opposition
to the fugitive slave law, and his elegiac support of John Brown
draw attention.
I would furthera rguet hatT horeau'sd eparturef romt he center
of sociala ndp oliticall ife,d ocumentedi n Waldenc,a nb e interpreted
as a rejection of the legal and political obligations physically imposed
throughr esidencei n a polity.W hilea t WaldenP ond,T horeau
attemptst o stripa way institutionald uty in a restatemento f essentialst
hatr einforcesh is commitmentt o, and recognitiono f, the bare
fact of moral duty. His obsession with simplicity and his residence
there,w ell outside of town, can be specificallyi nterpreteda s rejections
of the conventiont hat popular participationi n democracy
equalsj ustice.T husT horeaui s not maintaininga, s Rosenbluma ssumesh
e must,t hat" althoughth e pretexto f democracyis one cause
of civil disobedience it is also what makes it possible to conceive of
'civil' disobediencei n the first place."4R7 atherh, e denies that de-
45. For an overview of this debate over the moral duty of political obligations,
see J. Roland Pennock and John Chapman, eds. Politicala nd LegalO bligationN: omos
XII (New York: Atherton Press, 1970), pp. xvi-xviii. As already noted, George Kateb
believes that the legal and political procedures of constitutional democracy (and,
we may infer, the obligations required to sustain them) have intrinsic moral worth;
see The Inner Ocean, p. 57.
46. Thoreau, "Life Without Principle," p. 117.
47. Rosenblum, AnotherL iberalismp, p. 105-106.
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 371
mocracy can lend any legitimizing influence to his actions at all,
however much it may seem that it makes them more convenient.
Consider Thoreau's insistence that the constitutive element
of any just regime is consent of the governed. In liberal regimes
consent is usually deduced in one of two ways: either through
an assumed acceptance of a hypothetical social contract, or
through political participation in representative democracy. The
former reconciles the fact of man's moral autonomy with the
compromises of public life by theoretically positing such autonomy
in a "state of nature," before the deliberate creation of
society. After the contract takes effect, personal good is relegated
to the private sphere and held inferior to the "public good" which
now serves as the basis for agreement and therefore dominates
political discourse. The logic of majoritarian or representative
democracy allows issues of common political interest to be subjected
to a tribunal of popular opinion, wherein participation in
the voting process comes to stand for the consent of all those
governed. The individuals within the polity-whether they voted
or not, whether their views won out or not-are then bound by
the decisions made by the collective political body.
In both cases, a sense of the common good and one's obligation
to promote it serve as the moral basis for the political obligations to
which the citizen is subject. The assumption of a common good
which morally supercedes all personal good is a central motivation
for the constructiono f the state, and the degree to which the state
serves the common good (i.e., is just) is the criterion of its legitimacy.
48W hile disagreements do exist over what the common good
is and how it should be served, political considerations (that is,
those concerns relevant to the actions and powers of government)
must by definitionr eferencet he prevailings entimentso f common
48. Hanna Pitkin contends that both Locke and Joseph Tussman advance
consent theories which do not ground obligation in consent, but really see the
arrangement as an obligation to consent to a (just) government; this means that
one's political obligation is derived not from an incidence of contract but from a
judgment of the justness of the government: "Obligation and Consent-I," American
Political Science Review 59 (1965): 990-99. Two responses to Wolff's In Defense of
Anarchism echo Arendt's argument in "Civil Disobedience" that the issue at stake
in consent theory is less the security of moral autonomy than the protection of a
sense of the common good: Robert F Ladenson contends that the authority of the
state is grounded in respect for its service of the unanimously agreed-upon "good"
(AmericanP hilosophicaQl uarterly9 [1972]:3 35-341);a nd Lisa Perkins follows Socrates
in asserting that obedience to laws is grounded in a duty to preserve the conditions
that make the good possible. "On Reconciling Autonomy and Authority," Ethics 82
(1972): 114-23.
372 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
good and phrase its justificationi n those terms, since it is these
(moral)c ommitmentsw hich groundp oliticalo bligationi n the first
place. In fact, we can identify one of the primary constitutive conventions
of a democracya s the idea that throughp articipationi n
politicald ecision-makingc itizens serve a notion of the public interest
or common good above their personal interests.49
AlternativelyG, eorgeK atebm aintainst hat Thoreau'sc all for
consento f the governedc an be answeredb y rearticulatingd emocratic
practices like voting and representation not as true
expressions of consent, but as forms requisite to a legitimate government
(which is a government entitled to make laws and policies
binding on people in society.) Legitimacy (and hence, obligation
to obey) is assured when the form and procedures enshrined
within the government are such as to give as much assurance as
possible that the state can achieve only those aims which justify
its existence and which the government mechanism alone can
achieve. This legitimation principle is coupled with Kateb's understandingo
f theU .S.C onstitutiona s a contracbt etweeni ndividuals
that simultaneously specifies the form, powers, procedures, and
limitations of that government. Voting citizens "will" the system
into beingb y the electoralp rocedureI. t is a socialc ontractt o which
all Americansg ive (rathers uperfluous)t acit consent.50T his is a
corollary of the argument that justifies democracy by pointing
out that the best and most efficient mechanisms available to ensure
that a political regime remains responsive to the needs and
concernso f its citizens are those of democracy.5I1n this reformulation,
t hej ustnesso f a regimei s determinedb y the extentt o which
it retains its sensitivity to the true needs of the populace, who are
held to "consent"t o such a governmentb ecauset he government's
49. For instance, see Hannah Arendt, "Civil Disobedience," p. 85; Tussman,
Obligation and the Body Politic, p. 10. Michael Walzer, in Obligations, elaborates a
version of consent wherein obligations are grounded in promises made to other
people, so that obligation begins with membership in a group; the state is a primary
authority whose obligations may nevertheless conflict with those of a secondary
group (pp. 7, 10, 21). But since Thoreau certainly did not phrase his obligation to
higher law in terms of group membership, the same criticisms he implicitly levels
against the collectivism of democratic "consent" apply here.
50. Kateb, The Inner Ocean, pp. 114,120,173.
51. This is Don Herzog's argument in HappyS laves:A Critiqueo f ConsentT heory
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 205-13. He notes that
responsiveness does not itself imply consent, but a list of regimes we intuit as resting
on consent will all be the responsive ones. Moreover, given that true voluntary
consent is difficult to establish, he suggests that it may be more important to respect
the autonomy of all individual people under a political regime which could take
consent as its foundation than to worry about securing the consent itself.
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 373
practices, presumably, remain within the boundaries of acceptable
political and legal conduct.
It should be obvious, however, that Thoreau's version of
"consent"d epartsf roma ll of the abovee laborationsB. othh is sense
of justice,a nd his declarationth ath e "do[es]n ot wish to be regarded
as a member of any incorporated society which [he has] not
joined,"5d2 emand that any institutionalo bligationsb e grounded
in a true, expressed consent; simply assuming that a positive
evaluation of justice would constitute an act of consent gets the
chain of causationb ackwards.5F3o rT horeau,c onsent,h igher law,
and acting justly form an identity such that the presence of any one
implies the other two: he tells us that the just government is one
that has been consented to; one that has been consented to must,
by definition, be in accordance with higher law, else its citizens
would not sanction it; and those who consent by reason of its
accordancew ith higher law must, accordingt o Thoreau'sd ouble
obligation to both perceive and perform right, be leading the just
life that such a principle entails (i.e., to agree is to agree to obey).
This tripartite identity makes an express act of consent seem
superfluous, but I think it may be possible to lend some coherency
to Thoreau's argument here if we return to our discussion of the
way in which constitutivec onventionso ftenp roducec ontradictory
or unexpecteds ignificationsf or particulara cts.W ek now Thoreau
has already rejected typical democratic practices for their
demonstratedv ulnerabilityt o this kind of meaning-manipulation,
but I would like to sketch out a way in which the voluntary
assumptiono f a moralc ode, like Thoreau's,m ay become evident
in ways thata red iscernablea s politicalc onsent-remembering,o f
course,t hat "expressed"c onsentn eed not be expressedo penly as
long as the act is voluntarily undertaken and recognized as the
deliberate assumption of a political obligation.
BecauseT horeauc riticizesd emocracyf or its irresponsibilityin
enforcing institutional obligations meant to embody justice but
which do not actually result in justice, he must understand "consent"
to mean consent not just to a process, but to an outcome:
52. Thoreau, "Resistance," p. 13.
53. See Thoreau, "A Plea for Captain John Brown," p. 151; "Resistance to Civil
Government," p. 20. This is very similar to the argument made by A. John Simmons
on behalf of John Locke. Simmons maintains that Locke intended expressed consent,
and that any attempts to reconcile his theory to reality by formulating
approximations to this consent (as through the radical participationism of Herzog
or the hypothetical contractarianism of John Rawls) miss the point entirely. See On
the Edge of Anarchy: Locke, Consent, and the Limits of Society (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1993), pp. 74-78.
consent must be given both to the performance of the institutional
acts that generate the institutional obligations, and to the recognized
meaning that fulfillment of the obligation generates under
the sanction of the appropriate constitutive convention.
This attitude is borne out by Thoreau's belief that the concatenation
of manifold personal interests in society will reflect the
diversity-driven harmonization found in nature, over the distortion
or homogenization of meanings that a political system must
ascribe to the performance of particular acts. "Let everyone mind
his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made," he exhorts
us in Walden.mT his suggests that, in a social system organized
so that the constitutive conventions which govern the meaning of
particular acts remain discernable and intelligible to the agents
undertaking the pursuant obligations, fulfillment of an implied institutional
obligation can be construed as an expression of consent.
When the meaning that each act generates is stable and clearly
discernable, the agent can evaluate each course of action to see if
the outcome accords with his understanding of higher law. This
evaluation is not possible when the meanings of the acts are illegible
or contradictory. Consent becomes possible only when one can
take real responsibility for the ultimate meanings of institutional
acts, and this condition cannot obtain when the outcomes of democratic
decision-making supplant the morally derived meanings that
an agent intends.
Thoreau's Democratic Interpreters
Recasting Thoreau's political critique in this manner calls into
question the strongest argument for his democratic status: namely,
that the privacy afforded him by a liberal democracy prevents him
from lodging any effective critique against it. Both George Kateb
and Nancy Rosenblum interpret Thoreau's embrace of values typically
found in a liberal democracy as necessarily (if somewhat
critically) supporting the system itself. Kateb positions Thoreau
among his fellow Transcendentalists, whose "democratic individualism"
Kateb sees as both an outcome and an enrichment of
representative democracy.55H e argues, in fact, that the great value
of constitutional liberalism lies precisely in its ability to allow individuals
to be less involved in political life, which is a goal Thoreau
would ostensibly affirm. But when Kateb goes on to insist that it is
54. Thoreau, Walden, p. 345.
55. Kateb, The Inner Ocean, p. 78.
374 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 375
the very process of constitutional representative democracy that
promotes and produces a conception of individual dignity and the
sphereo f actiona ppropriateto thatc oncepto f dignity,t he irony of
Thoreau's critique is obscured. Thoreau is pointing out that these
institutions-and the processes which buttress them-themselves
violate or render impossible the moral activity that makes private
life intelligible to begin with. Kateb's claim that things like electionsa
nd due processl aw containi ntrinsicm oralv alue,t hen,m akes
a point that Thoreau could not even recognize, much less see as
legitimating democracy.56
Thoreau's act of civil disobedience in refusing to pay the poll
tax deserves carefulc onsiderationh ere, because it openly flaunts
the means of redress that democracy provides and thus provides a
convenientc ounterexamplteo Kateb'sa rgumentA. t the same time,
however, there is no denying the act's implicit paradox: even as it
aggressively protests the policies undertaken by a democratic regime,
its occurrence seems to remain crucially dependent on the
values of free expression and tolerance, which find institutional
culminationa nd securityi n the procedureso f democracyT. his tension
animates Nancy Rosenblum's sophisticated account of
Thoreau's political thought, which integrates his militant detachment
with the projecto f liberald emocracyI. n linking Thoreaut o
the contemporary Romantic movement in Europe, Rosenblum
champions him as one of the few romantics wise enough to integratet
he personalc ompulsiont o self-developmentw ith the needs
and virtues of public (and democratic)li fe.57H er argumentd evelops
from the conflict that she sees in Thoreau's simultaneous
embodiment of both radical individualism and romantic sensibility:
the former depends upon values that in Rosenblum's opinion
derive theirm eaningf roml iberald emocracy", wherep ersonall iberty,
c onsent,a nd resistanceh ave recognizedm eanings,"w hile the
latter" placesa premiumo n noncomformityr athert han on moral
agreement."5T8h e tension is resolved by a stance of "militancy,"
outwardlym anifesti n a "heroicin dividualism"t hati s both aggressive
toward others and detached from public life.59
56. Kateb, The Inner Ocean, pp. 57-64. I should note that my argument with
Kateb extends only to his characterization of Thoreau as a democrat, not to his
arguments about the value of constitutionalism and representative democracy.
57. See Rosenblum, AnotherL iberalisma, nd "Thoreau'sM ilitant Conscience."
Her later views concerning Thoreau's commitment to representative democracy
become considerably less ambivalent: see her introduction to Henry David
Thoreau, Political Writings, pp. xxix-xxx.
58. Rosenblum, "Thoreau's Militant Conscience," p. 83.
59. Rosenblum, AnotherL iberalismp, . 103.
376 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
Rosenblumb elieves thatT horeau'sm ilitancyi s enough to motivate
his political resistance independently of considerations of
conscience, and so ignores the way in which Thoreau's moral imperatives
shape his approach to politics. Because she, like Kateb,
conceives of liberal freedoms and democratic institutions as conceptually
implicated, Rosenblum cannot account for the degree to
which Thoreau sees a commitment to things like freedom of expression
and personal dignity as simply unintelligible when
subjectedt o thev agarieso f democratico pinion-even when its evils
are dilutedb y a liberalismt hats ecuresw hat Thoreaum ost values.
Rosenblumi nsistst hat" detachmenlto ses both its originalt emptation
and its dramatic force if democracy is not Jacobin but liberal
and insteado f imposingo bligationso r demandingl oyaltiesi t leaves
Thoreau alone."6 We have already seen, however, that Thoreau
indicts democracy-even its liberal variant-for the very reason
that it does impose obligations, distorting the meaning of citizens'
conduct by helplessly implicating the discharge of their duty to
obey justice in the outcome of elections or in the legislative choices
of representativesT. hisc onfusiono f meaningsl eads to a condition
in which ultimatelyi,n justicec omes to be calledj ustice:w hen he is
arrested, for example, Thoreau notes the implicit paradox of jail
being the appropriatep lace for a just man in an unjust system.61
Thoreau goes on to praise John Brown's raid for the inspiration it
gave the North to go "behind the human law" and return to "original
perceptions,"to see that" whatw as calledo rderw as confusion,
what was calledj ustice,i njusticea, nd thatt he best was deemed the
worst."62T horeau's commentary on this event foregrounds the kind
of personal commitment to justice that need not, and should not,
referencet he distorteds ense of justicep roducedw ithin democratic
institutions.T horeau'sa ct of state resistancei s not a celebrationo f
liberald emocracyb, ut rathero ne parto f an ongoingp rocesso f challenging,
and giving new definitions to, those terms usually
employed to justify it.
60. Ibid., p. 92.
61. Thoreau, "Resistance," p. 10.
62. Thoreau, "The Last Days of John Brown," pp. 164-5.
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 377
Thoreau's Alternative
Although Thoreau never gives a complete account of his alternative
vision, he does suggest a few ways in which typical social
practices can be adapted or reconceived to meet the rigorous standards
of his moral commitments. I discuss them briefly here in
conclusion because they are helpful in comprehending both the
importance of, and the limits to, Thoreau's critique of democracy.
Recalling Thoreau's definition of government as "that which
secures justice in the land," we must conclude that his vision of
justice requires a decentralization of political commitments so radical
that they may no longer be recognizably "political" at all. For
Thoreau, rather, the proper interpersonal relationship is a form of
neighborliness, marked by a rhetoric not of community, but of commonality63-
a shared understanding that grounds the constitutive
conventions which give sustainable, morally integrated meaning
to the fulfillment of institutional obligations.
The distinction Thoreau implicitly draws between legal and
moral obligations allows him to reject public life while preserving
the private sphere as a domain of fruitful social intercourse. "I
deal with men, not offices," Thoreau declares during the
narrative of his arrest. Thoreau is not jarred by the dissonance
between political-legal duties that such "offices" attempt to
discharge, and the primacy of independent moral obligation. Any
actions with political or other consequences for Thoreau derive
exclusively from moral commitments, and thus find articulation
as obligations to people, not institutions. They are, in that sense,
private.4 The institutional allegiance required by definition for
any putative duty to obey the law, especially if such a duty is
grounded in respect for democratic processes, is fundamentally
incapable of finding support from Thoreau's idea of moral duty.
Simmons makes the interesting observation that, should an
absolute monarch decide to make sacrifices for his subjects, it is
conceivable that the personal debts of gratitude owed him might
be political obligations because no separation of private and
official capacities is evident.65 This is probably the closest model
63. Robert D. Richardson, Jr., "The Social Ethics of Walden," in Critical Essays
on HenryD avid Thoreau'Ws alden, ed. Joel Myerson (Boston:G .K. Hall, 1988), p. 244.
64. Even his abolitionism was less directly political than one may imagine.
Alfred Tauber insightfully observes that Thoreau's indignation over slavery arises
more from the fact that his rights are being threatened, not the slaves'. Henry
David Thoreaua nd the MoralA gencyo f Knowing( Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2001), p. 191.
65. Simmons, MoralP rinciplesa nd PoliticalO bligationsp, . 190.
one could find to explain Thoreau's vision of political life: moral
obligations replace the legalities originally intended to produce
political result, with the paradoxical effect that state-related
activity must become a personal activity.66
This reading turns Kateb's claim about Thoreau's project on its
head: while to Kateb Thoreau aims to "politicize the nonpolitical
relations of life and thus to democratize them," I would in fact contend
that Thoreau is engaged in the exact opposite task:
de-politicizing many of the political relations of life to accommodate
his moral sensibility.7 Whatever else others may claim that
liberal democracy promises (like the legal and social capability to
be left alone, the possibility for the articulation of public criticism,
the fair negotiation of political demands made by individuals and
groups, or legal guarantees of individual liberties), in Thoreau's
understanding it is no less guilty than monarchy of promoting an
authority it cannot morally justify to individuals. More than just a
liberal fear of arbitrary power impels Thoreau to champion the private
life.
The plea that he makes in "Resistance to Civil Government"
for the state to treat him "as a neighbor" suggests that Thoreau
thinks political actions can and should be advanced much the
same as one neighbor appeals to another, to win his opinion
through persuasion with full endorsement of his conscience. To
Thoreau the neighborliness ethic seems to stand in for the legal
obligations that are often meant to regulate interpersonal conduct.
Any other kind of social or political involvement, Thoreau
alleges, would be able merely to appropriate one's body, not to
establish moral authority. Rosenblum's characterization of
Thoreau as so militantly detached that "neighborliness becomes
public agon" thus reveals itself to be an overstatement, relying
as it does on the premise that Thoreau was a mere exhibitionist,
not a moral visionary.68
66. Brian Walker relates Thoreau's doctrine of advice-giving to the concept of
continuity between everyday activity in the local sphere and in the rest of the political
sphere, which is precisely the way Thoreau seems to envision political activity in
the ideal state. It is unclear from his article, however, what for Walker constitutes
Thoreau's endorsement of democratic institutions as such, other than Thoreau's
gestures in Walden toward a universal capacity for self-cultivation: "Thoreau on
Democratic Cultivation," pp. 180-83.
67. Kateb, The Inner Ocean, p. 40.
68. Rosenblum, AnotherL iberalismp, . 114.
378 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 379
Event hosew ho, like Thoreaut, emporarilyc hooset o withdraw
their residency still have a universal commitment to treating others
and their possessions with this kind of neighborly respect. In
WaldenT horeaum akesa point to borrowa neighbor'sa x to fell the
trees that would become his cabin on Walden Pond, for the simple
reason that "it is the most generous course thus to permit your
fellow men to have an interesti n your enterprise."T hroughouth is
book he maintainst hat the onlyk ind of social cooperationp ossible
is involvedi n this effortt o "geto ur living together."6T9h er eciprocity
of this kindo f relationshipb indsa n individualt o the community
around him without the sacrifice of his moral autonomy. After all,
Thoreau explains his willingness to pay the highway tax, and to
support education in the village, as an expression of his desire to
be "a good neighbor."70
But being neighborly does not necessarily mean maintaining
a persistent formal detachment.7I' n addition to insisting upon
the privacye njoyedv is-a-viso therp eople, neighborlinessc an also
accommodate social interaction on a personal level, which can
secure the kind of privacy enjoyed vis-a-vis the state. The latter
kind, of course,i s of mored irectr elevancep olitically;i t sometimes
even entails the task of enjoining others to your cause, a possibility
of which Thoreau took advantage when he addressed his audience
at the Concord Lyceum. The relationships guiding interpersonal
behavior that Thoreau elaborates throughout his defense of John
Brown are not, as some commentators have assumed, the
necessarily alienating commitment to individual principles that
Thoreau'sc ivil disobediencee mbodies;nin stead,w e againw itness
a convergence of conscientious interests that in Thoreau's mind
seems almost inevitable, and which impels his own allegiance to
Brown. Commitment to principle does set him apart from the
masses, but it also binds him together with the equally
conscientious. H.D. Lewis observes that "while the individual
must in the last analysis obey his own conscience, yet, as part of
his duty to find out what is his duty, there is much in the meantime
that he requires to do to correct the limitations of his private point
of view" which includes consulting with others who may have
moree xperienceo r insight.73N eighborlinessc an be seen as acting
as one such check on the downward spiral of subjective morality.
69. Thoreau, Walden, pp. 135,138.
70. Thoreau, "Resistance," p. 17.
71. This is Rosenblum's claim in AnotherL iberalismp, . 64.
72. See, for instance, ibid., p. 153.
73. H. D. Lewis, "Obedience to Conscience," p. 244.
380 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
This may be what Thoreau means by fulfilling "all the duties of
neighbors and fellow-men."74
In some senses Thoreau would agree with Michael Walzer that
liberal democracy alienates individuals from commonality. But
Thoreau'so lutioni s uniquei n highlightingth e dangerso f too much
politicali nvolvementH. e callsn ot fora n expansiono f politicals pace
to accommodatet he contestationa nd negotiationo f the contento f
public good, but for more privacy to find one's own good, to reform
oneself, to ascribe genuine significance and affect to social
relationships-in other words, to more truly "get our living together."
T hea lternativet o liberald emocracyT, horeaum akesc lear,
is not communitarianisms;o cial harmonya nd morali ntegritya re
better sustained when we "succeed alone, that we may enjoy our
success together."75
It is of course true that Thoreau's enthusiastic rhetoric glosses
over the sometimes prohibitive difficulty involved in reconciling
the demands of political life with those of private morality-a goal
alreadya bandonedb y many scholarsa s futile or misguided.76B ut
it would be a mistake to assume that the frequently tragic results
of our effortst o do so canb e unproblematicallmy itigatedb y democratic
politics, and Thoreau's critique is valuable for precisely its
demonstration of democracy's own inability to accommodate all
necessary moral commitments. To misinterpret Thoreau's political
criticisma s sympathetict o democracyt, hen, is to risk missing
the unique contributionh e makes to our understandingo f political
life. Thoreau is showing us what is at stake when democratic
legitimacy goes unexamined: the complex relationship of moral
loyalties to civic duties is obfuscated, and we remain unable to
see or properly gauge democracy's not insignificant side-effects,
including moral compromise and the elevation of expediency at
the expense of justice.
By foregroundingt he moralq uestionst hat ought to motivate
politics,m oreover,Thoreaduir ectso ura ttentiona wayf romp olitical
institutions and toward the individuals that the institutions are
74. Thoreau," Resistance,"p . 21. Such a characterizationm ay lend some support
to the "community consciousness" that many commentators read into Thoreau's
social criticism in Waldene: .g., RichardD rinnon, "Thoreau'sP olitics of the Upright
Man," in Waldena nd Civil DisobedienceA: uthoritativeT exts,B ackgroundR, eviewsa nd
Essays in Criticism, ed. Owen Thomas (New York: W. W. Norton and Company,
1966), p. 416.
75. Thoreau, "Paradise (to be) Regained," Reform Papers, p. 42.
76. See, e.g., Tussman, Obligation and the Body Politic, pp. 18, 25-31; Michael
Walzer," PoliticalA ction:T he Problemo f Dirty Hands,"P hilosophya ndP oliticalA ffairs
2 (1973): 160-80.
THOREAU'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY 381
ostensibly in place to serve. Thoreau is actually making the
surprising observation that, like monarchy or aristocracy,
democracy too is a system where one is unavoidably governed by
others,a nd it is this realizationt hatd rivesh im to a nearlya narchic
(but to him more genuine) form of "self-rule."T hats uch a vision
seems utopian does not mean it should not be taken seriously as a
criticism of the assumption that democracy is the best we can doeven
if we accept that democracy is the best realistic option at
present for the just management of political life, it does not mean
that it is unassailable or above criticism. Thus, his admission that
the American constitution and the political system it undergirds is
"very good," when "seen from a lower point of view," signals not a
commitmentt o democracyb, ut a warningt o his readerst hat their
complacency about democracy will inhibit the search for better
(perhapsm orel iberal?)p ossibilities,a nd will foreclosea ny attempt
to seek a higher moral ground. This is because these institutions,
"seenf roma pointo f view a littleh igher...arew hat I have described
them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what
they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all?"7
Thoreau's political writings are valuable for the very reason that
they help us recognize the tradeoffs between liberal freedoms and
democratic commitments-moral costs that lie well-concealed
beneath a mask of practicality.
77. Thoreau, "Resistance," p. 18.