In the context of this excerpt from “Civil Disobedience” by Henry Thoreau, what does the word posterity mean? This American government—what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves.
A) Metaphor
B) Rhetorical question
C) Parallelism
D) Logos

Posterity means the future generations and ,in this excerpt, the word is whithin a rhetorical question. A rhethorical question is a question the author posits without expecting an answer. The writer wants to appeal to the audience's emotions since this sort of question reflects the authour's outrage. Thoreau criticises the American government since he believes this has been constructed by institutions that represent the majority but not the slaves or the Mexicans. Through the rethorical question, he shows that the American government is an instution whose only concern is to be passed from generation to generation as a tradition but not as an integral institution.