In 1845, as Thoreau was preparing to build his cabin at the pond, he became involved in a local controversy that resulted in his taking a public stand on the side of abolition. There was opposition within the Concord Lyceum to inviting abolitionist Wendell Phillips to speak, ending in an abrupt change of Lyceum management and in the extension of the invitation to Phillips. (Phillips had earlier spoken before the Concord Lyceum, to the discomfort of some of the more conservative members of the community.) Thoreau consequently wrote a letter to William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator, defending Phillips' right to speak. The letter was published in the March 28, 1845, issue. Thoreau's stance was in keeping with his family's ardent abolitionism. His mother and sisters, active in the Concord Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society and the Middlesex County Anti-Slavery Society, applauded his outspokenness.
In July of 1845, while living at Walden, Thoreau was arrested and jailed for nonpayment of the poll tax, which he had refused to pay since 1842 in protest against government complicity in slavery. Although Thoreau's debt was paid by an anonymous benefactor, and he therefore spent only one night behind bars, the event was significant because it led directly to the preparation of one of his most influential writings. In 1848, Thoreau first lectured before the Concord Lyceum on "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Government." In 1849, he submitted "Resistance to Civil Government" to Elizabeth Palmer Peabody for publication in the May 1849 issue — as it turned out, the sole issue — of her Aesthetic Papers. The piece was later published under the title Civil Disobedience.
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers also appeared in May of 1849, under the imprint of Boston publisher James Munroe. Thoreau had had difficulty in arranging for the book's publication, and had finally had one thousand copies published at his own expense. Most of those copies remained unsold and eventually came back to him.
