This essay was written in 1848. First published in Elizabeth Peabody's Journal of Aesthetics in 1849 under the title "Resistance to Civil Government." The author argues that people should not allow the government to dominate their consciousness and should not make concessions to it, so as not to become victims of injustice. This text of the Russian translation (O. V. Albedil) is reproduced from: “New Prophets. Thoreau. Tolstoy. Gandhi. Emerson" (St. Petersburg, "Aletheia", 1996). Notes compiled by A. N. Nikolyukin