Henry David Thoreau 
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience 

’On the Duty of Civil Disobedience’ argues that citizens should not permit their government to overrule their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing their acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War, but the sentiments he expresses here are just as pertinent today as when they were first written. A true American classic.