It
was Philip who called my attention to this last class, and to the
effect its existence must have on the common people in the crisis then
present.
"The colonists of America are not like any other people," said he.
"Their fathers came to this land when it was a savage wilderness,
tearing themselves from their homes, from civil surroundings; that
they might be far from tyranny, in small forms as well as great. Not
merely tyranny of king or church, but the shapes of it that Hamlet
speaks of--'the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the
insolence of office.' All for the sake of liberty, they battled with
savages and with nature, fought and toiled, bled and starved. And
Tyranny ignored them till they had transformed their land and
themselves into something worth its attention. And then, backed and
sustained by royal authority, those hated things stole in upon
them--'the insolence of office, the proud man's contumely, the
oppressor's wrong.' This, lookye, besides the particular matter of
taxation without representation; of being bid to obey laws they have
no hand in making; of having a set of masters, three thousand miles
away, and not one of their own land or their own choosing, order them
to do thus and so:--why, 'twere the very soul and essence of slavery
to submit! Man, how can you wonder I am of their side?"
"And with your taste for the things to be found only in the monarchies
of Europe; for the arts, and the monuments of past history, the places
hallowed by great events and great men!" said I, quoting remembered
expressions of his own.
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