Thoreau the libertarian

I've never read much (like any) Thoreau.  I understand Walden Pond was like 1.5 miles from his house, so On Walden Pond as a definitive treatise on back-to-nature is a bit, well, overblown. That said, this quote is supposed to come from him, which raises him up in my estimation:

There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

 --American author and poet Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)