Patrick Henry

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Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry

In office
1776 – 1779
1784 – 1786
Preceded by First Governor
Benjamin Harrison V (1784)
Succeeded by Thomas Jefferson (1779)
Edmund Randolph (1786)

Born May 29, 1736
Hanover County, Virginia
Died June 6, 1799 (aged 63)
Brookneal, Virginia

Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736 – June 6, 1799)[1] was a prominent figure in the American Revolution, known and remembered for his "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" speech. Along with Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, he is remembered as one of the most influential (and radical) advocates of the American Revolution and republicanism, especially in his denunciations of corruption in government officials and his defense of historic rights.

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[edit] Early years

Henry was born in Studley, Hanover County, Virginia on May 29, 1736.[2] His father was John Henry, an immigrant from Aberdeenshire, Scotland, who had attended King's College, Aberdeen before immigrating to the Colony of Virginia in the 1720s.[3] Settling in Hanover County, about 1732 John Henry married Sarah Winston Syme, a wealthy widow from a prominent Hanover County family of English ancestry.[4] Patrick Henry was once thought to have been of humble origins, but he was actually born into the middle rank of the Virginia gentry.[2] Henry attended local schools for a few years, and then was tutored by his father. After failing in business, in 1754 he married Sarah Shelton, with whom he would have six children. As a wedding gift, his father-in-law gave the couple six slaves and the 300-acre Pine Slash Farm. Henry began a career as a planter, but their home was destroyed by fire in 1757.[2] Henry made another attempt at business, which also failed, before deciding to become a lawyer in 1760.[2]

Henry first made a name for himself in a case dubbed the "Parson's Cause" (1763), which was an argument about whether the price of tobacco paid to clergy for their services should be set by the colonial government or by the Crown. After the British Parliament overruled Virginia's Two Penny Act that had limited the clergy's salaries, the Reverend James Maury filed suit against the vestry of Louisa County for payment of back wages. When Maury won the suit, a jury was called in Hanover County to determine how much Maury should be paid. Henry was brought in at the last minute to argue on behalf of Louisa County. Ignoring legal niceties, Henry delivered an impassioned speech that denounced clerics who challenged Virginia's laws as "enemies of the community" and any king who annulled good laws like the Two Penny Act as a "tyrant" who "forfeits all right to his subject's obedience".[5] Henry urged the jury to make an example of Maury. After less than five minutes of deliberation, they awarded Maury one penny.[6]

[edit] Stamp Act

Patrick Henry was elected from Louisa County to the House of Burgesses, the legislative body of the Virginia colony, in 1765 to fill a vacated seat in the assembly. When he arrived in Williamsburg the legislature was already in session. Only nine days after being sworn in Henry introduced the Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions, "in language so extreme that some Virginians said it smacked of treason".[7]

The freshman representative waited for an opportunity where the mostly conservative members of the House were away (only 24% was considered sufficient for a quorum). In this atmosphere, he succeeded, through much debate and persuasion, in getting his proposal passed. It was possibly the most anti-British American political action to that point, and some credit the Resolutions with being one of the main catalysts of the Revolution. The proposals were based on principles that were well established British rights, such as the right to be taxed by one's own representatives. They went further, however, to assert that the colonial assemblies had the exclusive right to impose taxes on the colonies and could not assign that right. The imputation of treason is due to his inflammatory words, "Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!"

Patrick Henry's "Treason" speech before the House of Burgesses in an 1851 painting by Peter F. Rothermel

According to biographer Richard Beeman, the legend of this speech grew more dramatic over the years. Henry probably did not say the famous last line of the above quote, i.e. "If this be treason, make the most of it." The only account of the speech written down at the time by an eyewitness (which came to light many years later) records that Henry actually apologized after being accused of uttering treasonable words, assuring the House that he was still loyal to the king. Nevertheless, Henry's passionate, radical speech caused quite a stir at the time, even if we cannot be certain of his exact words.

[edit] American Revolution

Patrick Henry is perhaps best known for the speech he made in the House of Burgesses on March 23, 1775, in Saint John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. The House was undecided on whether to mobilize for military action against the encroaching British military force, and Henry argued in favor of mobilization. Forty-two years later, Henry's first biographer, William Wirt, working from oral testimony, attempted to reconstruct what Henry said. According to Wirt, Henry ended his speech with words that have since become immortalized:

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!

The crowd, by Wirt's account, jumped up and shouted "To Arms! To Arms!". For 160 years Wirt's account was taken at face value, but in the 1970 historians began to question the authenticity of Wirt's reconstruction.[8] Historians today observe that Henry was known to have used fear of Indian and slave revolts in promoting military action against the British, and that according to the only written first hand account of the speech, Henry used some graphic name-calling that failed to appear in Wirt's heroic rendition.[9]

In August 1775, Henry became colonel of the 1st Virginia Regiment. At the outset of the Revolutionary War, Henry led militia against Royal Governor Lord Dunmore in defense of some disputed gunpowder, an event known as the Gunpowder Incident. During the war, he served as the first post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776-79, an office he held again from 1784-86. During his first stint as Governor, he presided over several invasions of Cherokee Indian lands.

Henry lived during part of the War at his 10,000-acre (40 km2) Leatherwood Plantation in Henry County, Virginia, where he, his first cousin Ann Winston Carr and her husband Col. George Waller had settled.[10] During the five years Henry lived at Leatherwood, from 1779 to 1784, Henry owned 75 slaves, and grew tobacco.[11] During this time, Henry kept in close touch with his friend the explorer Joseph Martin, whom Henry had appointed agent to the Cherokee nation, and with whom Henry sometimes invested in real estate, and for whom the county seat of Henry County was later named.

In early November 1775, along with James Madison, Henry was elected a Founding Trustee of Hampden-Sydney College, which opened for classes on November 10. He would remain a Trustee until his death in 1799. Henry was instrumental in achieving passage of the College's Charter of 1783 (an action delayed because of the War). He is probably the author of the Oath of Loyalty to the new Republic included in that charter. Seven of his sons attended the new college.

On October 25, 1777, Patrick Henry married his second wife, Dorothea Dandridge (1755–1831). From this marriage there were 11 children.

[edit] Later years

After the Revolution, Henry was an outspoken critic of the United States Constitution and urged against its adoption, arguing it gave the federal government too much power. As a leading Antifederalist, he was instrumental in forcing the adoption of the Bill of Rights to amend the new Constitution. He became a strong opponent of James Madison. By the late 1790s he was a prominent Federalist in support of Washington and Adams. The irony is that most of his followers became Republicans who supported Jefferson's party. President George Washington offered him the post of Secretary of State in 1795, which he declined. In 1798 President John Adams nominated him special emissary to France, which he had to decline because of failing health. He strongly supported John Marshall and at the urging of Washington stood for the House of Delegates in 1799 as a staunch Federalist. He especially denounced the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which had been secretly written by Jefferson and Madison, and approved by the legislatures of those two states. He warned that civil war was threatened because Virginia, "had quitted the sphere in which she had been placed by the Constitution, and, in daring to pronounce upon the validity of federal laws, had gone out of her jurisdiction in a manner not warranted by any authority, and in the highest degree alarming to every considerate man; that such opposition, on the part of Virginia, to the acts of the general government, must beget their enforcement by military power; that this would probably produce civil war, civil war foreign alliances, and that foreign alliances must necessarily end in subjugation to the powers called in." He was elected to the House of Delegates, but died three months prior to taking his seat.[12]

Henry spent his remaining years with his family on a large plantation known as Red Hill. He died at Red Hill of stomach cancer[citation needed] on June 6, 1799.

[edit] Monuments and memorials

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Patrick Henry Timeline". Patrick Henry National Memorial. http://www.redhill.org/timeline.html. Retrieved on 2007-11-28. 
  2. ^ a b c d Thad Tate, "Henry, Patrick", American National Biography Online, Feb. 2000.
  3. ^ Meade, Patrick Henry, 13–18.
  4. ^ Meade, Patrick Henry, 1:21–24.
  5. ^ Meade, Patrick Henry, 1:133
  6. ^ Beeman, Patrick Henry, 16–19; Middlekauff, Glorious Cause, 82–83; Meade, Patrick Henry, 1:125–34.
  7. ^ Breen, T.H.,"Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution",(Princeton University Press, 1985),p.189
  8. ^ Judy Hemple, "The Textual and Cultural Authenticity of Patrick Henry's 'Liberty or Death' Speech," Quarterly Journal of Speech 63 (1977): 298-310; see Ray Raphael, Founding Myths, 311 note 7 for additional discussions among historians.
  9. ^ Raphael, Founding Myths, 145-156, 311-313.
  10. ^ The True Patrick Henry, George Morgan, Lippincott, New York, 1907
  11. ^ A Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic, Henry Mayer, Grove Press, New York, 2001
  12. ^ Tyler, Patrick Henry pp413-420
  13. ^ "Fort Patrick Henry Reservoir". Tennessee Valley Authority. http://www.tva.com/sites/fortpatrickhenry.htm. Retrieved on 2008-10-28. 

[edit] References

  • Beeman, Richard R. (1974). Patrick Henry: A Biography. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0070042802. 
  • Mayer, Henry (2001). Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic. New York: Grove Press. 
  • Meade, Robert D. (1957-1969). Patrick Henry: 2 volumes. 
  • Raphael, Ray (2004). Founding Myths: Stories that Hide Our Patriotic Past. New York: The New Press. ISBN 1565849213. 
  • Tyler, Moses Coit (2002) [1898]. Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry University Press. ISBN 978-1589635579. 
  • Wirt, William (1818). Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry. Philadelphia: James Webster. 

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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Political offices
Preceded by
Edmund Pendleton
Governor of Virginia
1776–1779
Succeeded by
Thomas Jefferson
Preceded by
Benjamin Harrison V
Governor of Virginia
1784–1786
Succeeded by
Edmund Randolph
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