Blog 3

     Thoreau saw little value in government, instead he argued that it rarely proved itself useful and that it only had power because the majority of people allowed it, it does not have any power on its own. Thoreau believes that a just government would allow its people to listen to their own moral code when determining whether to listen to government, but the current government of his time was not like this and tried to force people to fight in the Mexican War. Thoreau's government still resembles our government today because they both still do not allow people to follow their own moral obligations. 

     The Mexican American War was a war between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. The war was considered to be an unjust war because it was started by America annexing Texas. This angered the Mexicans, who had lost a civil war with Texas and still wanted to gain it back. President Polk sent troops rushing into parts of Texas and build forts on land that Mexico did not even consider Texas. President Polk wanted this war to complete "Manifest Destiny", which was the belief that America could stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Mexico stood in the way of this. His reasons for starting this war were not ethical as he wanted to fight the war in over to take land from Mexico.