ith the Mexican-American War, as a few individuals used their positions within the government to push forth their own agenda of furthering the territorial gains of the United States. He eschewed the idea of majority rule because ôà a majority are permittedà to rule à not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongestö (Thoreau 207). Thus, it was not majority rule that should decide right or wrong, but each individual citizenÆs conscience.
This, Thoreau declared, was the citizenÆs one true responsibility. He contended that ôThe only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think rightö (Thoreau 207). Thus, Thoreau believed that a citizen was not obligated to follow laws believed just by the government, but those which he himself had determined to be right and moral. If the government was itself unjust or waged an unjust war, a citizen s
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