ish idealist,
had just died, and the Scotch Thomas Reid arose with the weapon of
common sense to test the metaphysician's ideas. Common Sense was, in the
strictest sense, revolutionary, and, under the tyranny of king, lords,
and commons, meant war. It was not a phrase without meaning, but a
principle proclaimed, and it passed more readily into the understanding
of the common people because conveyed in common speech. When Reid said,
"I despise philosophy, and renounce its guidance; let my soul dwell in
common sense," he illuminated all Britain and America. The philosophy of
common sense entered the professor's chair, invaded the pulpit, and,
having passed thence into the humblest cottage, soon took a higher
range--it went immediately up and knocked at the king's gate. It would
be false to say it found admittance there. It was only because there
had been a new world opened as an asylum for the oppressed of every
land, that it did not sweep kings and monarchs from all the high places
in Europe.

At this time, too, Mr. Pitt, the great commoner, the friend of common
sense and English liberty, in his old age, war-worn and sick, had
compromised with his vanity for a title. In his great fall from Pitt to
Chatham, from the people to a peerage, he gained nothing but lost his
good name. He exchanged worth for a bauble, and a noble respect for the
contempt of nobles and the sorrows of the people. Mr. Pitt had departed,
Lord Chatham was passing away; and in any assault by a trafficking
ministry and corrupt legislature upon the people's rights, there was no
one left to bend the bow at the gates.

To tax the colonies became the settled plan of king, ministers, and
parliament. The tax was easily imposed, but could not be enforced.
Freedom had long before been driven to America, and, in a line of direct
descent, her blood had been transmitted from mother to son. The true
sons of freedom now stood shoulder to shoulder, and, looking forward to
independence, claimed to have rights as men, which king and lords would
not concede to subjects. The Stamp Act was passed and repealed, and a
Test Act substituted. England refused to compel the colonies to give up
their money without their consent, but menaced them, and consoled
herself with these words: "_The king in parliament hath full power to
bind the colonies in all things whatsoever._" Having surrendered the
fact, she indulged in declamation, and the world laughed at her folly.
Like a fretf