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Gandhi's principles of peaceful, non-violent non-cooperation were inspired by an American philosopher, Henry David Thoreau ("Essay on Civil Disobedience").  The USA was the first country, besides India, to honor Gandhi on its stamps and printed the largest quantities of Gandhi stamps ever printed by any country.  Strange statistics, from a country, which until twenty years before this, had regarded Gandhi as a seditious saboteur of Western interests.  Strange also, since US laws in 1961 were targeted against racial minorities and were responsible for throwing someone who adopted Gandhi's non-violent tactics, Rev. Martin Luther King, in jail.