We do not frankly avow error, and we still think the assent of the governed to a government a thing desirable to be secured, under suitable circumstances and with proper limitations; but, if it cannot conveniently be secured, we are advised on New England senatorial authority that "the consent of some of the governed" will be sufficient, we ourselves selecting those proper to be consulted. Thus in such cases as certain islands of the Antilles, Hawaii, and the communities of Asia, we admit that, so far as the principles at the basis of the Declaration are concerned, Great Britain was right, and our ancestors were, not perhaps wrong, but too general, and of the eighteenth century, in their statements. To that extent, we have outgrown the Declaration of 1776, and have become as wise now as Great Britain was then. At any rate we are not above learning. As was long ago said,--"Only dead men and idiots never change;" and the people of the United States are nothing unless open-minded. So, also, as respects the famous Boston "tea-party," and taxation without representation. Great Britain then affirmed this right in the case of colonies and dependencies. Taught by the lesson of our War of Independence, she has since abandoned it. We now take it up, and are to-day, as one of the new obligations towards the heathen imposed upon us by Providence, formulating systems of imposts and tariffs for our new dependencies, wholly distinct from our own, and directly inhibited by our constitution, in regard to which systems those dependencies have no representative voice. They are not to be consulted as to the kind of door, "open" or "closed," behind which they are to exist. In taking this position it is difficult to see why we must not also incidentally admit that, in the great contention preceding our War of Independence, the first armed clash of which resounded here in Lexington, Great Britain was more nearly right than the exponents of the principles for which those "embattled farmers" contended.