Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to,—for I will
cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even
those who neither know nor can do so well,—is still an impure one: to be strictly
just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure
right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from
an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a
progress toward a true respect for the individual. Is a democracy, such as we know
it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step
further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be
a really free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the individual
as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are
derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last
which can aord to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a
neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose, if a few
were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fullled all
the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and
suered it to drop o as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more
perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen
4.21.2 From Walden, or Life in the Woods
(1854)
“Economy”
When I Wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in
the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the
shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the
labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a
sojourner in civilized life again.
I should not obtrude my aairs so much on the notice of my readers if very
particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of
life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all
impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some
have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the
like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to
charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I
maintained. I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest
in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book.
In most books, the I, or rst person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in
respect to egotism, is the main dierence. We commonly do not remember that
it is, after all, always the rst person that is speaking. I should not talk so much
about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am
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