In his 1849 essay Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing the government to make them the agents of injustice. Mohandas Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) credited Thoreau's essay with being the chief cause of the abolition of slavery in America. This new hardcover edition of Civil Disobedience includes a biographical essay on Thoreau by historian Elbert Hubbard.