by Lamar Alexander

About the author: Lamar Alexander, former governor of Tennessee, was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996.

One wintry day in January, 1776, an unsigned pamphlet appeared on the streets of Philadelphia. Its title was Common Sense. In the most inflammatory terms, it urged the American colonists to declare their independence from Britain.

This is what Common Sense had to say about the King of England’s ancestry: “A French bastard landing with armed bandits, and establishing himself King of England against the consent of the natives....”

This is what Common Sense had to say about King George himself. “He hath wickedly broken through every moral and human obligation, trampled nature and conscience beneath his feet; and by a steady and constitutional spirit of insolence and cruelty, procured for himself universal...