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JULY’S FEATURED TEXT

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"Resistance to Civil Government" by Henry David Thoreau.

Thoreau's essay was first published in 1849 in an anthology called Æsthetic Papers. In his essay, Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. The essay is often referred to by the title Civil Disobedience, but Thoreau's original title served as part of Thoreau's metaphor, comparing the government to a machine. When the machine was producing injustice, it was the duty of conscientious citizens to be "a counter friction" (i.e., a resistance) "to stop the machine."

I heartily accept the motto,—"That government is best which governs least;" 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. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.

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The current Community collaboration is collecting texts related to Edward VII of the United Kingdom (1841–1910) Recent collaborations: Henry David Thoreau, WikiProject NARA, Tenth Anniversary Contest, Disney, Domesday survey

The current Proofread of the Month is The Maine Woods  (1864) by Henry David Thoreau. Recent collaborations: The Story of Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Earliest Lives of Dante, Thoreau: His Home, Friends and Books, The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire, Savage Island, The Tourist's Maritime Provinces, The Book of Scottish Song, Women Wanted, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Paper and Its Uses, The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago, Church Seats and Kneeling Boards

The current Maintenance of the Month task is Work index revision Recent collaborations: Orphans, Proposed policies and guidelines, Author page connection with Wikidata items, Help page improvement, Undated works

NEW TEXTS

Memoirs of Vidocq (1828)
 by Eugène François Vidocq
Ode on the Stability of the British Empire (1901)
 by John Simpson
Pintosmalto (1850)
 by Giambattista Basile, translated by John Edward Taylor
How to Get Strong and How to Stay So (1899)
 by William Blaikie
Boots and Saddles (1885)
 by Elizabeth Bacon Custer
Nesting of the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird: Trochilus Colubris (1889)
 by Joseph Warren Jacobs
Letters of Life (1868)
 by Lydia Sigourney

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