Chapter 4 Translation Preface - 4

On July 4th, which happened to be Independence Day, the National Day of the United States, he lived in the log house by the lake that he built.In this wooden house, in this forest by the lake, observing, listening, feeling, contemplating, and dreaming, he lived independently for two years and a little more.He recorded his observation experience, and he analyzed and studied the information, experience and experiences he got from nature.His solitude by the lake must not be regarded as a kind of hermit life.He purposefully explores life, criticizes life, inspires life, and expounds the higher laws of life.Not negative, he is positive.He was not escaping from life, he was walking towards life, and in the middle of this, he also used his own unique way to devote himself to the political struggle at that time.

It happened one night when he went into town to a cobbler's house to mend a pair of shoes, and was suddenly arrested and imprisoned in the prison of Cannes.The reason was that he refused to pay the poll tax.He has been refusing to pay this tax for six years.He spent the night in prison and didn't care.The next day, he was released because someone had paid the poll tax for him. After he was released, he still went to the shoemaker's house, waited for his shoe to be repaired, put it on, and ran a few miles away with a group of friends Roaming among the huckleberry bushes where no state government could see--this is his famous incarceration.

In the first issue of the journal Aesthetics, published in 1849, he published an essay entitled "Resistance to Municipal Government".When this article was included in "An American in Canada, and His Essays Against Slavery and Reform," published in 1866 (four years after his death), the title was changed to "On the Right of Civil Disobedience."Which one should be used for the title of this article is quite controversial in the reading circles, and some people specialize in this issue.The title of "Passive Resistance" is generally used in our country, and it is inherited from the past and will not be changed.In the article, Thoreau did not issue any call for political action, but rather it was one of the so-called "higher principles" he always advocated.He believes that the government should naturally do what is beneficial to the people, and it should not interfere with the people.But all governments have failed to do this, let alone this American government that preserved slavery, so he wants to protest and resist this government, and disobey this government.He believes that if the government wants to force the people to do things against their conscience, the people should have the right to passive resistance to resist it and resist it.This paper on "Passive Resistance" first influenced the British Labor Party and the Fabians, and later on Indian Mahatma Gandhi's "non-cooperation movement" and "non-violence" who fought against British imperialism on a hunger strike. It had a great effect on Martin Luther King Jr. in 1960, on the civil rights movement in Africa, on Tolstoy's "Don't fight violence with violence," and on Romain Rolland some impact.

Thoreau opposed slavery all his life, and helped black slaves in the south flee to the free north more than once.He also wrote "Slavery in Massachusetts" (1854), after his passive revolt in 1845, and he, along with Emerson, supported John Brown. In October 1859, Brown failed to attack Harper's Ferry and was arrested. In November, the court sentenced Brown to hang. Thoreau delivered the speech "Petition for John Brown" in the city hall.After Brown's death, when the local area did not allow Brown to hold a memorial service, he went to the city hall to ring the big bell and convened the masses to hold a memorial service.Thoreau's series of articles and actions on Brown are strong political words and deeds.

During this period Thoreau suffered from tuberculosis and his health deteriorated markedly.Despite a medical trip to Minnesota, his condition did not improve.He knew he was dead soon.In the last two years, he calmly sorted out the diary manuscripts, selected some passages from them to write articles, and published them in the "Atlantic Monthly".He ended his life peacefully and peacefully, on May 6, 1862, at the age of forty-five.