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L'Esclavage au Massachusetts: et autres textes (Les essais de Thoreau t. 8)
Fortes de leur travail de longue haleine autour de l’œuvre de Henry D. Thoreau les éditions Le mot et le reste mettent à portée de tous les lecteurs les écrits de cet auteur incontournable en les passant au format de poche. Dans L’Esclavage au Massachusetts, Thoreau fait le constat de l’insuffisance du modèle de retraite pastorale qu’il avait élaboré. La culture de soi ne suffit pas face à des esclavagistes déterminés, il faut résister activement. L’abandon de la position idéaliste, vertueuse mais relativement passive adoptée dans La Désobéissance civile, le conduit à une rhétorique véhémente, sarcastique et hargneuse, avec laquelle il attaque tous ceux qui oublient les principes fondamentaux d’humanité.
Américain dissident, Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) est un réfractaire qui se plaît à résister, à suivre son chemin absolu en dépit de tout. Par ses écrits, il met la force tonifiante de sa résistance au service de tous ceux qui veulent garder l’esprit en éveil et maintenir une position critique peut-être plus nécessaire que jamais à notre époque de contrôle soft de l’opinion par les divers moyens d’information ou les « produits culturels ».
Américain dissident, Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) est un réfractaire qui se plaît à résister, à suivre son chemin absolu en dépit de tout. Par ses écrits, il met la force tonifiante de sa résistance au service de tous ceux qui veulent garder l’esprit en éveil et maintenir une position critique peut-être plus nécessaire que jamais à notre époque de contrôle soft de l’opinion par les divers moyens d’information ou les « produits culturels ».
71 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 20, 2008
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About the author
Henry David Thoreau
2,493 books6,799 followersHenry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, philosopher, and abolitionist who is best known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."
Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.
More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...
http://thoreau.eserver.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....
http://www.biography.com/people/henry...
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."
Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.
More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...
http://thoreau.eserver.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....
http://www.biography.com/people/henry...
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
October 19, 2017
This short speech by Thoreau is a tour de force of writing, let alone speaking. I imagine Thoreau with some type of Massachusetts accent, but at the time it might have leaned more towards sounding more like an English accent?
Thoreau had attended a recent meeting, which he thought would deal with slavery in Massachusetts, but it was in regards to Nebraska instead. "I had thought that the house was on fired, and not the prairie; but though several of the citizens of Massachusetts are now in prison for attempting to rescue a slave from her own clutches, not one of the speakers at that meeting expressed regret for it, not one even referred to it." From there Thoreau focuses a razor upon the Fugitive Slave Law, the governor of Massachusetts and the judge deciding the fate of the most recent 'kidnap' as Thoreau describes it.
"The whole military force of the State is at the service of a Mr. Suttle, a slaveholder from Virginia, to enable him to catch a man whom he calls his property; but no a soldier is offered to save a citizen of Massachusetts from being kidnapped! Is this what all these soldiers, all this training has been for these seventy-nine years past? Have they been trained merely to rob Mexico, and carry back fugitive slaves to their masters?"
Thoreau tears into almost every representation of citizenship, law, liberty, and the state/Federal branches of government, including the people who blindly support each and every part of that system. His comparison of newspapers and editors as the true Bible of America, which leads us down so many of these evil paths is especially worth your time, but I will let you seek it out yourself.
Enjoy, I promise you will.
Thoreau had attended a recent meeting, which he thought would deal with slavery in Massachusetts, but it was in regards to Nebraska instead. "I had thought that the house was on fired, and not the prairie; but though several of the citizens of Massachusetts are now in prison for attempting to rescue a slave from her own clutches, not one of the speakers at that meeting expressed regret for it, not one even referred to it." From there Thoreau focuses a razor upon the Fugitive Slave Law, the governor of Massachusetts and the judge deciding the fate of the most recent 'kidnap' as Thoreau describes it.
"The whole military force of the State is at the service of a Mr. Suttle, a slaveholder from Virginia, to enable him to catch a man whom he calls his property; but no a soldier is offered to save a citizen of Massachusetts from being kidnapped! Is this what all these soldiers, all this training has been for these seventy-nine years past? Have they been trained merely to rob Mexico, and carry back fugitive slaves to their masters?"
Thoreau tears into almost every representation of citizenship, law, liberty, and the state/Federal branches of government, including the people who blindly support each and every part of that system. His comparison of newspapers and editors as the true Bible of America, which leads us down so many of these evil paths is especially worth your time, but I will let you seek it out yourself.
Enjoy, I promise you will.
November 9, 2015
Master of rhetoric. This essay contains criticism of American government and press that is still relevant today. My favorite quote is, "if the majority in congress were to vote the devil to be God. . . the minority must then wait and comply until a later date to reinstate God.
December 30, 2025
important messages that still apply today ngl
December 31, 2017
Thoreau's timeless essay perfectly encapsulates the sentiment of the present time:
I have lived for the last month—and I think that every man in Massachusetts capable of the sentiment of patriotism must have had a similar experience—with the sense of having suffered a vast and indefinite loss. I did not know at first what ailed me. At last it occurred to me that what I had lost was a country.
I dwelt before, perhaps, in the illusion that my life passed somewhere only between heaven and hell, but now I cannot persuade myself that I do not dwell wholly within hell.
Suppose you have a small library, with pictures to adorn the walls—a garden laid out around—and contemplate scientific and literary pursuits, &c., and discover all at once that your villa, with all its contents is located in hell, and that the justice of the peace has a cloven foot and a forked tail—do not these things suddenly lose their value in your eyes?
No prudent man will build a stone house under these circumstances, or engage in any peaceful enterprise which it requires a long time to accomplish.
If we would save our lives, we must fight for them.
The remembrance of my country spoils my walk. My thoughts are murder to the State, and involuntarily go plotting against her.
I have lived for the last month—and I think that every man in Massachusetts capable of the sentiment of patriotism must have had a similar experience—with the sense of having suffered a vast and indefinite loss. I did not know at first what ailed me. At last it occurred to me that what I had lost was a country.
I dwelt before, perhaps, in the illusion that my life passed somewhere only between heaven and hell, but now I cannot persuade myself that I do not dwell wholly within hell.
Suppose you have a small library, with pictures to adorn the walls—a garden laid out around—and contemplate scientific and literary pursuits, &c., and discover all at once that your villa, with all its contents is located in hell, and that the justice of the peace has a cloven foot and a forked tail—do not these things suddenly lose their value in your eyes?
No prudent man will build a stone house under these circumstances, or engage in any peaceful enterprise which it requires a long time to accomplish.
If we would save our lives, we must fight for them.
The remembrance of my country spoils my walk. My thoughts are murder to the State, and involuntarily go plotting against her.
September 12, 2021
Ein verkanntes Kleinod unter den Thoreau-Büchern
Wahrscheinlich schreckt der ursprüngliche Titel die meisten ab: "Sklaverei in Massachusetts". Doch es gab keine Sklaverei in Massachusetts. Zu Thoreaus Zeiten wusste das noch jeder und so konnte Thoreau mit dem Titel provozieren.
Die Menschen in Massachusetts behaupten zwar gegen die Sklaverei zu sein, unterstützen sie aber ganz direkt, indem sie billige Baumwolle aus dem Süden kaufen.
Doch sie machen sich selbst auch zu Sklaven - zu Sklaven der Regierung, indem sie alles glauben, was man ihnen sagt und sich nicht trauen, eine andere Meinung zu haben.
Seine Kritik gilt vor allen den Zeitungen, die eine Einheitsmeinung präsentieren und den Soldaten, die Befehle ausführen, obwohl diese gegen die Verfassung von Massachusetts sind.
Blinder Gehorsam und der Glaube an die Richtigkeit von dem, was gedruckt steht, ist kein neues Problem. Erschreckend jedoch, wie alt es ist und wie wenig wir bis heute aus der Vergangenheit lernten.
Wahrscheinlich schreckt der ursprüngliche Titel die meisten ab: "Sklaverei in Massachusetts". Doch es gab keine Sklaverei in Massachusetts. Zu Thoreaus Zeiten wusste das noch jeder und so konnte Thoreau mit dem Titel provozieren.
Die Menschen in Massachusetts behaupten zwar gegen die Sklaverei zu sein, unterstützen sie aber ganz direkt, indem sie billige Baumwolle aus dem Süden kaufen.
Doch sie machen sich selbst auch zu Sklaven - zu Sklaven der Regierung, indem sie alles glauben, was man ihnen sagt und sich nicht trauen, eine andere Meinung zu haben.
Seine Kritik gilt vor allen den Zeitungen, die eine Einheitsmeinung präsentieren und den Soldaten, die Befehle ausführen, obwohl diese gegen die Verfassung von Massachusetts sind.
Blinder Gehorsam und der Glaube an die Richtigkeit von dem, was gedruckt steht, ist kein neues Problem. Erschreckend jedoch, wie alt es ist und wie wenig wir bis heute aus der Vergangenheit lernten.
August 3, 2019
Read from Civil Disobedience and Other Essays byHenry David Thoreau.
An address delivered at the Anti-Slavery Celebration at Farmingham, July 4th, 1854.
In part, Thoreau attacks the press for being unrighteous political gods. In a time when periodicals were the way that rural and townsfolk stayed relatively current with events, the press had much power. Since every periodical has a worldview ruled over by the editors, the editors and their periodicals dictated social reality. And Thoreau despises the editors. Some quotes I found telling. I have recorded/liked some quotes which can be found below.
An address delivered at the Anti-Slavery Celebration at Farmingham, July 4th, 1854.
In part, Thoreau attacks the press for being unrighteous political gods. In a time when periodicals were the way that rural and townsfolk stayed relatively current with events, the press had much power. Since every periodical has a worldview ruled over by the editors, the editors and their periodicals dictated social reality. And Thoreau despises the editors. Some quotes I found telling. I have recorded/liked some quotes which can be found below.
December 11, 2025
Simply chilling. The criticism Thoreau gives on the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branch along with the general populace of the United States at the time is scarily close to what we see today. Makes you think of the country's condition as a pendulum swinging farther back and forth deeper into the extremes of I suppose as Thoreau put it, expediency and morality. I find it funny too how even back then in the country's early days the press was apparently not very trustworthy either. This was a very telling account of the USA in the mid 1800's.
May 31, 2018
Some of Thoreau's most important work (other than Walden). He did several of these pieces. "Civil Disobedience," "Slavery in Massachusetts," and "The Plea for John Brown." This should be required reading for any history, civil rights class. Such important and influential documents but at the time Thoreau wrote these his beliefs were very much in the minority.
June 17, 2020
Powerful essay about the moral wrongness of slavery and his disgust with how unjust laws upholding slavery were followed in Massachusetts. Although slavery in and of itself is no longer an issue, his response and indignation to upholding unjust laws and cultural norms is still relevant and worthy of study
May 31, 2018
the spirit of civil disobedience is alive and strong in this short piece of writing. Reading Henry David Thoreau always has always been and still is a refreshing and strengthening exercise for me. Where an angry, critical mindset meets literary talent and philosophical consequence ...
October 21, 2020
An incendiary speech given by Thoreau against the Fugitive Slave Act at an abolititionist rally in Boston.
December 28, 2020
Witty.
December 16, 2024
In his short speech, Thoreau manages to perfectly encapsulate the totality of the feeling of living under immorality while still inspiring action to be taken.
May 26, 2025
Big fan of everything this guy writes
December 29, 2025
a short address in massachusetts following the re-enslavement of anthony burns under the fugitive slave law, thoreau blasts the governor, the judge, the courts, & the newpapers for their acquiescence to injustice despite being a free state full of outrage, with some good observations on these institutions. he also remarks on the inhabitants of concord celebrating the 4th of july soon afterwards, "As if those three millions had fought for the right to be free themselves, but to hold in slavery three million others"
August 5, 2014
The finest non-fictional argument against slavery I've ever read. A great companion to "Uncle Tom's Cabin".
October 1, 2016
"The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make law free. They are the lovers of law and order, who observe the law when the government breaks it."
August 30, 2018
This should be required reading in schools when they discuss the fugitive slave act. In this short work, Thoreau makes some important points about freedom, how to deal with corrupt media, the dissonance between law and justice, and the absurdity of compromise by the standards of natural law. Thoreau also precedes judge Napolitano in expressing the lack of consent granted to the governed.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews