Thoreau passasge analyzation

“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think we should be men first, and subjects afterwards” -Thoreau

In this passage, Thoreau is expressing how he thinks people commonly think and act. He’s saying that it is more important to develop respect for what is right, rather than respect for what is law. If this is not true, then he is saying your conscience will be very useless because you would never need it if you always put the law in front of your own morals. Thoreau believes that people shouldn’t ignore their own thoughts and ideas of morality in order to go along with everything in the government.
I agree with the ideas that Thoreau is trying to express in this passage. He makes it very...