Anyone who fights for a just cause and is willing to break the law to do so uses it. However, without the essay "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau, who knows how these people would have succeeded in their causes. Civil disobedience is defined as the refusal to obey the law in order to change something one believes is wrong, usually through nonviolent passive means. In the essay Thoreau explains how he attempted to use civil disobedience in order to change something that he believed was wrong and how it is possible for one to change anything they feel is wrong through protest and other nonviolent but illegal means. In explaining that it was possible for a person or group of persons to change their world through passive nonviolent means, Thoreau was revolutionary because this idea can actually work in the real world.
Thoreau begins his essay by saying he heartily accepts the motto, "That government is best which governs least". He says he would like to see this motto acted upon. He then says that carried out to the fullest extent, "government is best which governs not at all." He states that when men are ready for this kind of government then they will have it. Thoreau explains that he believes the government is inexpedient and impractical because although it should execute the will of the people, instead it is usually abused and perverted before the people can act through it. He then alludes to the Mexican war to strengthen his point because people at the time believed the war was fought because of the desire of Southern planters and Northern merchants to extend the boundary of the United States and thus allow themselves to receive more income. He calls this "the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool." He believes the American government has lost much of its integrity and that the American people have been trapped into allowing the government to trample them by being distracted by material goods.