On July 4, 1854, in the wake of the failure of an attempt to prevent the return of fugitive slave Anthony Burns to his master in accordance with the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Thoreau delivered "Slavery in Massachusetts" before an abolitionist audience in Framingham, Massachusetts. Although based upon the ideas expressed in Civil Disobedience about the nature and authority of government and about the individual's obligations in relation to both civil and higher law, "Slavery in Massachusetts" is a far more impassioned statement. As the abolitionist struggle became more desperate, Thoreau's willingness to demand radical and violent measures grew, and was more forcefully expressed. In "Slavery in Massachusetts," he calls for the government of Massachusetts to resist federal might through military means. His "Plea for Captain John Brown," delivered in Concord on October 30, 1859, following Brown's arrest for attempting to incite a slave rebellion through his attack on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, is also based on the ideology presented in Civil Disobedience, and goes even farther in advocating whatever steps are necessary to stop government injustice. Thoreau writes in "A Plea": "I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable." Thoreau's vision of the relationship between man, God, and the state did not change, but his sense of the way in which individuals must resist institutionalized injustice evolved in response to specific national and local events.
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