Philosophy: Civil Disobedience and A plea for Captain John Brown

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Changes of Philosophy that Thoreau went through between "Civil Disobedience" and "A plea for Captain John Brown"
Henry David Thoreau, as a transcendentalism with a stern belief in the inherent morality of people and nature, claimed that individuals are at their best why they become independent and self-reliant. As a true believer of people's goodness, Thoreau's philosophy that informs his literature work about "Resistance to Civil Government" in 1849 was motivated by the Mexican-American War and slavery that lead to the production of his essay. During this period, slavery was the order of the day, and it drove the wedge in America while a significant number of Northerner was actively expressing their dissatisfaction on slavery. He stressed that the government of America had to respect citizens so that they could rightfully collect tax from them (Pineda 2). By 1859, Thoreau worked on another essay by the name "A plea for Captain John Brown" had its foundation on the first speech made by John Brown, who was an abolitionist and believed in aggressive power to ensure that the government ceased the business of slavery in America. Therefore this paper describes vital changes that informed Thoreau's philosophy from the time he first produced work concerning Civil Disobedience to the period he concurred with Brown and wrote an essay basing on his actions.
Following Thoreau's essay on resistance to the government, various actions contributed to his philosophical argument about the common citizen and the authority enforcing the law. In the first place, Thoreau refused to participate in tax payments because he was not happy with the way the government handled its people. The primary reason for regarding the American government as unjust was due to slavery and the Mexican-American civil war (Pineda 3). Thoreau argued that the existing authority had to stop its unjust behaviors from being regarded as the right body to collect tax from people. Concerning his philosophical thoughts, Thoreau suggested that citizens had to choose between paying taxes or not depending on the way they were treated by the government. He also added that defying the government was also dependent on its action against individuals (Pineda 4).
According to (Pineda (5), as a result of the unjust action by the government, Thoreau's philosophy was emphasized self-reliance and individualism. He demonstrated this philosophical thinking by refusing to pay tax, which led to his arrest, and spent a whole night in jail. Thoreau's action was primarily a protest to the Mexican war. Many believed that by spending a night in jail coupled with the slavery actions, Thoreau had gone many philosophical changes that led to the production of his work about "Civil Disobedience." Besides, because of his own experience, when he was tortured by the government, leading to his night time in jail, Thoreau was forced to do dramatic thinking about the authority. Again, Thoreau was w...