Henry David Thoreau
I live in Concord, Massachusetts, where I work as a writer. In order to support this war with Mexico, Massachusetts passed a poll tax. I won’t pay it. Simple as that. The government wants to force people into this unjust war to go kill Mexicans or be killed. I won’t support that. For my “crime,” they put me in jail for a night. My friend, the famous writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, came to visit me in jail. He said, “What are you doing in there?” I replied, “What are you doing out there?” Against my wishes, friends of mine paid my tax and I was released. But I have come to believe that the way to stop injustice is not merely to speak out against it, but also to refuse to obey unjust laws.