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"Civil Disobedience" is an essay by Henry David Thoreau, published in 1849. Thoreau argues that individuals should not allow governments to overrule their consciences and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his repulsion of slavery and the Mexican-American War. He argues that governments are typically more harmful than helpful and that democracy is no cure for this. Thoreau contends that if the law is itself clearly unjust, and the lawmaking process is not designed to quickly obliterate such unjust laws, then the law deserves no respect and it should be broken. Thoreau's essay has influenced many, including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.