"The great object is that every man be armed" and "everyone
who is able may have a gun." (Patrick Henry, in the
Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution.
Debates and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia,taken
in shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271,
275 2d ed. Richmond, 1805. Also 3 Elliot, Debates at
386)
"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing
degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for
our defense? Where is the difference between having
our arms in possession and under our direction, and
having them under the management of Congress? If our
defense be the real object of having those arms, in
whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety,
or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" (Patrick
Henry, 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions
45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836)
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect
everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing
will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give
up that force, you are inevitably ruined" (Patrick Henry,
3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions
45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836)
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The American political leader Patrick Henry was the
most celebrated orator of the American Revolution. He
was born on May 29, 1736, in Hanover County, Virginia.
Henry failed as both a storekeeper and a farmer before
being admitted to the Virginia bar in 1760. However,
he won fame in 1763 after his impassioned pleading in
the Parsons' Cause, a case in which he defended the
right of the colony to fix the price of the tobacco
in which the clergy were paid, despite a contrary ruling
from London.
When Henry entered the House of Burgesses in 1765,
he and Richard Henry Lee successfully compelled the
entrenched oligarchy to share power with them. Henry's
effectiveness as an orator gave him a commanding influence
in the legislature throughout his life. After the passage
of the Stamp Act (1765) he introduced a set of radical
resolutions denouncing the British Parliament's usurpation
of powers vested in the colonial legislature, which
alone had the power to tax. He supported the resolves
in a speech ending "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the
first his Cromwell, and George III ― may he profit
from their example." Widely circulated throughout the
colonies, the resolves made Henry famous.
Henry was the focal point of Virginia's opposition
to British policy. When the royal governor, Lord Dunmore,
dissolved the Virginia legislature after the closing
of the port of Boston in 1774, Henry organized a rump
session of the legislature, which met in the Raleigh
Tavern in Williamsburg. It issued an invitation to the
other colonies to send delegates to a Continental Congress.
As a member of the Congress, Henry was an outspoken
advocate of strong measures of resistance. At a meeting
of the Virginia assembly in Richmond on Mar. 23, 1775,
he called on the colonists to arm themselves, with the
words: "Give me liberty, or give me death."
Soon after, he led the militia of Hanover to force
Governor Dunmore to surrender munitions belonging to
the colony. With the outbreak of the Revolution, Henry
became commander in chief of the Virginia troops, but
he was prevented from actively exercising his command
by state leaders who considered him too erratic. He
continued in the legislature, fostering the move for
independence and helping draft the first state constitution.
In June 1776 he was elected governor. In this position,
which he held till 1779, he vigorously supported the
war effort, dispatching George Rogers Clark to secure
the western regions.
After the war Henry's influence in the legislature
tended to be sporadic because of his habit of leaving
before the end of the session. He astonished his contemporaries
by advocating state support of religion and amnesty
for Loyalists.
Henry served as governor again from 1784 to 1786 but
declined to attend the Constitutional Convention of
1787. An ardent supporter of state rights, he led the
Virginia opposition to ratification of the federal Constitution,
losing the vote by a small margin. His hostility to
centralized government and to measures favoring commercial
interests led him initially to protest the Federalist
program of the Washington administration. As the years
passed, however, his fear that the radicalism of the
French Revolution would infect the nation brought him
to support the Federalist party. Just before his death,
on June 6, 1799, he was elected to the state legislature
as a Federalist.
(Harry Ammon, The American Revolution)
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