Congratulations to Andrew Carroll of Keene on his first-prize winning essay of the 2009 NH Liberty Essay Contest! For his winning essay, Andrew has been awarded $200. Andrew’s essay is reproduced in full below:

The Self and the State

The Proper Hierarchy of Values and Its Moral Conclusions

“If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.”
- Henry David Thoreau in Civil Disobedience

Through the times there are two things that never truly change: one is human’s nature and the other is the State’s. Words will often echo, therefore, from eras long since past, and come to even greater relevance after the author’s death, because they remark upon some truism regarding man’s relation to the State. So long as the State’s intrusive nature only grows, the relevance of commentary concerning it will continue, also, to grow; as will the moral duty of man to oppose that intrusiveness.

We are left, thus, in our time, with a remarkable legacy of rebellion against the State; propagated by men such as Henry David Thoreau, who, in his classic essay, Civil Disobedience, put forth his view on why man ought denounce all laws of an immoral nature, and cut all ties with an immoral State. Thoreau not only wrote as much, but he lived it too: conducting his affairs in a manner most detractive to the growth and power of the “slave’s government” - a government which Thoreau could not accept as his.

In his essay, Thoreau wrote that it was important to produce a “respect for the right”, and not so much “for the law,” thereby advocating a hierarchy of moral obligation which stems, first, from what is right in this world, rather than what is legal. It is this hierarchy that is the true motivation for all acts of civil disobedience: acts affirming one’s own nature in the face of that which is entirely inhuman: the State. Thoreau lived his life supporting his own values as they stemmed from moral right; he was, thus, obligated to oppose the government, for its nature proves destructive to our own. As Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

“State is called the coldest of all… monsters.
Coldly lieth it… and this lie creepeth from its mouth:
“I, the State, am [you]!”
It is a lie!”

If a law, produced by the hands of the State, is destructive to the nature of man – which is to say that it impedes upon our freedom – then it is a law that ought to be fought against. Though the mouth of the State and its advocates will protest, saying that the State is you and me and represents “our interests”, we should know that those words are untrue, for we have not consented.

Not only, then, should the hands of man be hard at work to destroy such a law, but they should, too, avoid becoming means for its continued existence. Therein lies the power of civil disobedience, for it, both, works to change the minds of men against the State by revealing its anti-human nature, and, also, refuses to lend support in any manner to the law, or laws, of the State.

It is this power that Thoreau wished to expose to his readers, providing them with the intellectual tools to affirm their freedom and deny the oppression of the State. Thus, even in times immensely different than those of Thoreau, his words still resonate with any person willing enough to defend his freedom, his rights, and his humanity from an institution based on non-consent and geared towards the destruction of all that humankind holds dear. The State, being the inhumane entity that it is, wants nothing more than to repress the expressions of free men and control their every thought and action – more so now than ever – and Thoreau’s essay speaks volumes of the State’s intent to deny our freedom, and why moral men ought disregard any immoral law, and, even further, act in defiance of it.

Therefore, as moral right remains true throughout the times, so, too, does Thoreau’s advice to act in non-compliance with the immoral laws of the State; and as the State’s intrusive nature grows, so, too, does the powerful impact of civil disobedience.