For example, in the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, despite Tom Robinson's obvious innocence, he is convicted of rape; it was the word of her honest black man against that of a deceitful white woman. Racism was more important than ethics and truth. Jem, a typical young boy, just emerging from adolescence, loses all faith in the logic of justice within the legal system and in people in general. Presumably, if the victim had been a black woman and the defendant a white man, a race-based reversal would have freed him, regardless of the strength of the evidence against him. David Thoreau says, “Let your life be the countercurrent to stop the machine.” What I must do is be careful, in any case, not to lend myself to the evil that I condemn. (Pg. 35). If the government passes an unjust law, Thoreau argues that in certain circumstances one must break the law and be the one who goes against the "machine", or government metaphor. This suggests that when someone is accused of committing a crime, what really needs to be considered is whether the crime is based on an unjust law. Thoreau believed that there would be a result that would show the faults of the government. How is it that the government can commit such bad actions with impunity? Because it's the law, and when Thoreau suggests breaking the law, it's wrong even though it goes against evil.