Thoreau On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis

Throughout the duration of the Mexican American war, beginning in 1846, many attempts were made to gather support for the conflict. One citizen, who resided in Connecticut, showed much more drastic distest to this war than many others. Henry David Thoreau took both passive and active efforts to voice his antagonism to the conflict by refusing to pay a tax that he believed supported the ideology behind the war that the United States was partaking in at the time. Later, he contrived an essay that outlined his philosophies of resistance, and created a basis for his means of protest that he believed should be placed in the mindset of the general public. Throughout Thoreaus essay, he illustrates his vast opposition to the involvement in the†¦show more content†¦In Thoreau’s continuing effort to describe the context for citizen rebellion, he beseeches how irrelevant public opinion is if it is not acted on. â€Å"How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, an d enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved?† (Thoreau). This question develops a sense of urgency that unless an opinion is acted on, first, there will be a complete absence of realistic results, but second, it simply exacerbates the issue that citizen opinion is against. To an extent, opinions are worthless if there is no motivation behind them, and Thoreau makes this very clear within his essay to assist the exigence behind his straightforward tone. Thoreau also addresses the idea of citizen integrity when he asks the question, â€Å"What is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity?† (Thoreau). This concludes that a failure to rebel against an unjust principle consequently impairs one’s integrity. Additionally, he contends that tradition is an influential motivator that removes the idea of rebellion from the mind of many citizens. Tradition in a community creates a cycle that manages to persuade people to not rebel against an unjust cause due to conformity that becomes