Which sentences in this excerpt from "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau indicate the author's belief that the government is subordinate to the people?

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English

Jeffery Galvan

8 January, 10:10

Which sentences in this excerpt from "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau indicate the author's belief that the government is subordinate to the people?

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Alyssa Harrell · Answer 1

If the excerpt mentioned in the above question is this:

This American government - what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves ...

But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? - in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislation? 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. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.

Then the sentence that indicates the author's belief that the government is subordinate to the people is:

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.