Patrick Henry Written by, Dr. Joseph John Ellis
"Gentlemen may cry peace! peace! but there is no peace! The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field. Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death."
Fearless and eloquent, Patrick Henry became the spokesman of the Southern colonies during the stirring period that led to the American Revolution. His words, which expressed the feelings and hopes of the patriots, helped inspire them to make those dreams into reality.
Patrick Henry was born on May 29, 1736, in Studley, Hanover County, Va. His mother was English. His father, an educated man who worked as a surveyor and county judge, was Scottish. Young Henry's formal education was scanty, and at the age of 15 he entered business. He failed as a farmer and as a storekeeper and turned his attention to the law. Admitted to the bar, he succeeded immediately as a pleader before frontier juries.
In 1763 Henry supported the people against the established church in a case known as the Parson's Cause. During the trial he declared in an impassioned speech that a king by vetoing acts of a colonial legislature "degenerates into a tyrant and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience." This declaration brought him the love of the colonists and a seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses just at the time of the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765.
The older members of the House hesitated, not knowing what course to take in regard to the Stamp Act. Henry introduced a series of resolutions declaring that the British Parliament had no right to tax the American colonies. In the debate that followed, Patrick Henry exclaimed: "Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First, his Cromwell; and George the Third . . ." Here he was interrupted by loud cries of "Treason! Treason!" from members of the House. Henry paused for just a moment and then coolly finished: "and George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!" This fiery speech secured the adoption of the resolutions.
In 1774 Henry was sent by Virginia as a delegate to the first Continental Congress. At the second Virginia Convention the next year, he urged the colony to arm its militia. It was in this speech that he uttered the famous words:
Gentlemen may cry peace! peace! but there is no peace! The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field. Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.
Henry also helped draw up Virginia's state constitution in 1776 and was elected first governor of the state. He was reelected twice.
In the Virginia ratification convention of 1788, Henry opposed the adoption of the new Constitution of the United States. He objected to it because it contained no "bill of rights" and because it infringed too much on the rights of the states. He wanted the country to remain a confederation and feared that under the Constitution it would become merely "one great consolidated national government of the people of all the States." Henry's advice to reject the Constitution was not followed, but it was as the result of such opposition that the first ten amendments to the Constitution, popularly known as the Bill of Rights, were adopted.
Henry retired to Red Hill, his plantation near Brookneal, Va. In 1799 he consented to serve again in the Virginia legislative assembly, but on June 6, before he could take his seat, he died of cancer at Red Hill.
