For almost as long as telephones have been a common feature in homes and offices, telecommunication companies have regularly been faced with a situation where demand in a particular street or area exceeds the number of physical copper pairs available from the pole to the exchange.
This incident prompted Thoreau to write his famous essay, âCivil Disobedienceâ (originally published in 1849 as âResistance to Civil Governmentâ). Thoreauâs minor act of defiance caused him to conclude that it was not enough to be simply against slavery and the war. A person of conscience had to act.
After someone else paid his tax, he was released, but he gave an 1848 lecture on Resistance to Civil Government--since published as Civil Disobedience -- to explain his action. While far less known than Walden, Civil Disobedience has arguably had much farther reaching effects. It helped inspire the Danish resistance in World War II, Gandhi in India, and tax resistors and civic protestors of all types for many decades.