Should dissenters be exiled according to Henry David Thoreau?

Question

This is based on Thoreau's essay on civil disobedience.

Answer 1

Would you mind citing your source for this alleged opinion of Thoreau's?
I find it extremely hard to believe he ever said/wrote anything like that since he was such a great dissenter himself.
Far from being against dissent, Thoreau wrote a famous essay, "On Civil Disobedience" which states that dissent is sometimes both right and necessary and which inspired at least two other famous dissenters: Ghandi and Martin Luther King.

"The essay is individualist, secular, anarchist, elitist and anti-democratic; but it has influenced persons of great religious devotion, leaders of collective campaigns, and members of resistance movements."

Here's an excerpt from the intro:

"I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, — "That government is best which governs least";(1) and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient."

For more, please click on the first link.

In fact, he was jailed for dissenting:

" “Civil Disobedience” was Thoreau’s response to his 1846 imprisonment for refusing to pay a poll tax that violated his conscience. He exclaimed in “Civil Disobedience,
"Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right."

And, when his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson visited him there, the following exchange took place:

Emerson asked “Henry, what are you doing in there?” Thoreau replied, “Waldo, the question is what are you doing out there?”

I've read almost everything he wrote and I can recall no such sentiment.

I see you cite his essay "On Civil Disobedience" as your source. I challenge you to find such an opinion in that essay. You can read the essay by clicking on the first link.

Answer 2

Many have been entranced via Thoreau's idyllic photograph of Walden Pond. in the 60's, somewhat some infants formed communes with suggestions resembling those expressed via Thoreau. i've got ordinary a lot of them for my section and very few of them observed this as wasted attempt. residing a puzzling, straightforward existence with solitude an attainable commodity has a real high quality of existence approximately it that maximum won. It replaced a existence type that replaced into quite fantasized with unreal values with an person-friendly existence the place values have been very resembling those experienced via the pre-business agrarian societies which they sought to emulate. I see no reason you are able to not attempt such an test regardless of the undeniable fact that it could probable be clever to benefit as much as you are able to approximately how existence replaced into lived in those extra convenient instances. I wish you nicely and, in case you attempt this, I wish you a rich and worthwhile journey.

Answer 3

Thoreau wrote that everyone should follow their own path.
Maybe you are confused with writings of Hyde in the 16th Century. "The History of Rebellion" referring to exile. Thoreau was a firm believer in the autonomy of professing individual defiance of unjust law and resistance to government intrusion. He wasn't so opposed to societal laws in general, but to those laws which impose on your right of individuality.

Answer 4

Certainly...if they cross the line from giving their opinion to becoming activist traitors. Every citizen has a constitutional right (and duty) to speak their differing viewpoint...ONCE, but nobody has the right to work to destroy the government. In past history, those folks used to get hung.