Patrick Henry: Give me liberty or give me death

A revolution is rarely launched by a single twelve-minute closing-floor-speech at a colonial-Convention in a wooden-frame Episcopal-church. The Second-Virginia-Convention of March 1775 was the colonial-Virginia-political-response to the late-1774-Boston-Port-Bill-and-Massachusetts-Government-Act constitutional-crisis: the British-Crown's Coercive-Acts of late 1774 (the Boston Port Bill, the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration-of-Justice Act, the Quartering Act) had closed the Boston-port-and-Massachusetts-colonial-self-government across the Massachusetts-Colony, and the First-Continental-Congress of October-November 1774 had committed the colonial-Patriots to the coordinated-armed-militia-preparation-and-non-importation-and-non-consumption-and-non-exportation Continental-Association.

THE HANOVER COUNTY LAWYER

Patrick Henry was born at the Studley plantation in Hanover County, Virginia, on the twenty-ninth of May 1736, second son of John Henry, a Scottish-born Aberdeen-Henry-emigrant of the 1727-emigration-period who had taken the Hanover County Virginia-colonial-tobacco-plantation through marriage to Sarah Winston in the 1731-marriage, and Sarah Winston Syme of the Hanover County-Winston colonial-family. He was raised in the Hanover County colonial-tobacco-plantation gentry-environment, was schooled at home by his father-tutor on the classical-Latin-and-Greek colonial-Virginia-gentry-curriculum, took the bar-admission to the Virginia-General-Court in 1760 at the twenty-fourth-year of his age, and across the 1760s established the leading-colonial-Virginia legal-practice on the Williamsburg-and-Hanover-County circuit.

He took the Parsons Cause case in December 1763 at the Hanover County Courthouse on the colonial-Virginia-Anglican-clergy salary-arrears litigation against the Hanover County vestry (the Parsons-Cause was the foundational-case of the Virginia-colonial-tobacco-economy-and-Anglican-clergy-salary tax-dispute), gave the famous-closing-speech to the Hanover County-jury that opened with the foundational anti-Crown-constitutional argument (a King, by annulling or disallowing laws of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerates into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience), and won the jury's-one-penny token-damages verdict that effectively defeated the Parsons-Cause. The Parsons-Cause speech was the foundational Henry Virginia-political-rhetorical moment and brought Henry to the leading-Virginia-Patriot political-position by the mid-1760s.

THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES

He was elected to the Virginia-House-of-Burgesses for Louisa County in 1765 at the twenty-ninth-year of his age, took the leading anti-Stamp-Act position in the 1765 House-of-Burgesses on the Henry-Stamp-Act-Resolves of the twenty-ninth-of-May-1765 (the Henry-Stamp-Act-Resolves that opened with the foundational no-taxation-without-representation constitutional argument that became the foundational American-Revolutionary-rhetorical-position), and across the 1765-to-1774 pre-Revolutionary-period was the leading-Virginia-Patriot voice in the House-of-Burgesses-and-on-the-standing-Williamsburg-political-circuit.

He attended the First-Continental-Congress at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia in September-October 1774 on the Virginia-delegation, was the leading-Virginia-voice on the Continental-Association-arrangement of October 1774, and returned to Virginia in late October 1774 to take up the Virginia-Convention preparation across the winter of 1774-75.

THE TWENTY-THIRD OF MARCH

The Second Virginia Convention opened at the Old Capitol at Williamsburg on the twenty-third-of-February 1775 with the 120-delegate full-Virginia-Convention-attendance. The Convention moved to the St John's Church at Church Hill in Richmond on the twentieth-of-March 1775 on the strength of the Williamsburg-Tory-loyalist-Crown-Governor Lord Dunmore's threat to disperse the Convention if it remained in the Williamsburg-colonial-capital.

The closing-floor-debate of the Second-Virginia-Convention on the twenty-third of March 1775 was on the Henry-Resolution-to-Arm-the-Virginia-Colonial-Militia (the Henry-Resolution of the twenty-third of March 1775 that called for the immediate arming-and-training of the Virginia-Colonial-Militia in advance of the expected armed-confrontation with the British-Crown-authorities). The Convention-debate on the Resolution had run across the morning-and-early-afternoon of the twenty-third with the Tory-conservative-Convention-delegates opposed and the Patriot-Convention-delegates supporting.

Henry took the closing-floor-position on the Resolution at approximately three-thirty in the afternoon of the twenty-third of March 1775, gave the approximately-twelve-minute closing-floor-speech (the Henry-speech-text was not recorded in the Convention-minutes; the text-reconstruction was made by Henry's 1817-biographer William Wirt on the strength of the Convention-delegates' recollections, particularly Edmund Randolph and Thomas Jefferson), and closed with the foundational rhetorical-conclusion: 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! why stand we here idle? what is it that gentlemen wish? what would they have? 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 Convention vote on the Henry-Resolution carried on the twenty-fourth-of-March 1775 at the narrow 65-to-60 Convention-majority. The Virginia-Colonial-Militia was armed-and-trained across the spring-of-1775 on the Resolution-authority and provided the foundational Virginia-Revolutionary-armed-force on the summer-of-1775 Continental-Army-foundation under General George Washington.

THE STANDING-AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Henry served as the first post-colonial Governor of Virginia from the fifth of July 1776 to the first of June 1779 (the three consecutive one-year-terms permitted under the 1776 Virginia Constitution), served as the second post-colonial Governor of Virginia 1784-1786, was the leading Anti-Federalist voice in the Virginia-Constitutional-Convention of 1788 on the opposition to the 1787 Federal Constitution, and held the leading-Virginia-political-position across the late-1780s-and-early-1790s.

He died at the Red Hill plantation in Charlotte County, Virginia, on the sixth of June 1799 at the sixty-third year of his age. The St John's Church at Church Hill in Richmond has been the Patrick-Henry-Give-Me-Liberty Memorial-and-Historic-Site continuously since 1830, with the annual Henry-Speech-Re-Enactment performed by a historical-re-enactor on the twenty-third-of-March anniversary every year. The Henry name in modern American political-rhetorical history carries the weight of the afternoon at the St-John's-Church on the twenty-third of March 1775.