Many men consider service to their country to be an automatic virtue, but any act of service must always be conjoined with the exercise of conscience. Once a man resigns himself to the decisions of others, he becomes a machine, his body an instrument. Thoreau evokes the figure of soldiers marching to their deaths in the cause of a conflict that they perceive as unjust, and asks if they retain their humanity by deferring their fate to legislators.

A man has an obligation to act according to the dictates of his conscience, even if the latter goes against majority opinion, the presiding leadership, or the laws of the society. Thoreau objects to the notion of majority rule on which democracy is theoretically founded, noting that the views of the majority do not always coincide with the morally right one. Thoreau cites as a prime example the regulation of trade and commerce, and its negative effect on the forces of the free market. Far from furthering any creative enterprise, it has only stifled human accomplishment. Thoreau views government as a fundamental hindrance to the people that it purports to represent. Democracy is a tradition, and with each succeeding generation, it drifts from its original ideals of freedom and becomes increasingly burdensome and compromised. Government inherently lends itself to oppressive and corrupt uses since it enables a few men to impose their will on the majority and to profit economically from their own position of authority.

A case in point is the Mexican war (which would extend slavery into new US territories), orchestrated by a small élite of individuals who have manipulated government to their advantage against popular will. Thoreau opens his essay with the motto 'That government is best which governs least.' His distrust of government stems from the tendency of the latter to be 'perverted and abused' before the people can actually express their will through it.

On the duty of civil disobedience