Thoreau underscores the power of the individual to effect reform. He says of the government at the beginning of the Civil Disobedience, "It has not the vitality and force of a single living man. . . ." Later, he urges individuals to fulfill their moral responsibility by taking the action that most would prefer to relegate to external forces:
Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves, — the union between themselves and the State, — and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do they not stand in the same relation to the State, that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union, which have prevented them from resisting the State?
Reform will come only through the individual. Moral issues are the individual's concern. The individual's obligation is "to do at any time what [he thinks] right."
Thoreau expresses qualified optimism at the end of the essay, in his presentation of the evolution of government from absolute to limited monarchy to democracy, and in his suggestion that there may yet be a better form of government:
There will never be a really free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor. . . . A State which bore this fruit . . . would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.
Although non-government may constitute this "more perfect and glorious State," Thoreau recognizes that the time has not come for its realization.
