March 9, 2003
Speeches Roused Nation
Patrick Henry galvanized the colonies with his speech before the Virginia legislature during which he shouted:
"Give me liberty, or give me death!
He is portrayed clutching a scroll of paper, but eyewitnesses say he was holding
a paper knife which he "presented to his chest" at the climax
Patrick Henry, the greatest orator of the War For Independence, stirs my memory every March. First, because that was when in 1763 he delivered his most significant speech stirring 13 American colonies to revolution; and, second, because it also is the anniversary month of the year I won second-place in the Flint, Michigan, Central High School declamation contest.
I was assigned to deliver Henry's more famous "give me liberty, or give me death" speech delivered two years later. Judges said I declaimed "with great feeling" but awarded the blue ribbon to an opponent. He was judged to have expressed "great feeling and appropriate gestures."
If I had done some research before memorizing the famous oration, I might have done better. Since that time, I learned of the crucial gesture Patrick Henry used at the climatic moment to emphasize his passionate feelings. Ah, me! We grow too soon old and too late smart.
Henry was a failing, 24-year-old storekeeper at Hanover Court House, Virginia, when he decided to become a lawyer. He read a few law books and - as was the custom in a new land with few attorneys - was examined by three other lawyers as to his competence. They rated him "weak in law but high in industry augured to become an ornament and an honor to your profession."
In the first three years, Henry conducted 1,185 suits and won most of them. His march to fame and history began in a case that triggered the momentous break with England.
The case was called "The Parsons' Cause." It pitted colonial taxpayers against the Anglican clergy which -- as representatives of the royal church -- were granted stipends from taxes. Other denominations were not so favored.
According to Historian Harvey Ardman, the common currency in Virginia at that time was paper receipts for tobacco that had been delivered to warehouses for shipment to England. Anglican clergymen, by law, were paid paper worth 16,000 pounds of tobacco a year - raised by taxes on each parish.
During years of poor crops, tobacco was scarce, and the price soared. This automatically increased the pay of the clergy - and higher taxes - when times were hardest and farmers had less money.
Twice in the 1750's the Virginia Burgesses put a temporary fixed value of twopence a pound on tobacco for the purpose of paying the clergy.
The "Parsons" of the Anglican Church appealed to the king to have the "Twopence Decision" of the Burgesses set aside. The King did so.
Then, in 1763, the Parsons went to the Virginia Court to try and collect "back pay" for bad crop years in which the twopence law had been in effect.
The test case, brought by Parson Maury, was represented by Judge Peter Lyons, president of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. With such a proponent, no established lawyer would support the House of Burgesses. Young Patrick Henry stepped forward to volunteer his services.
Lyons tried to have three non-Anglican jurors removed from the jury. Failing that, he attacked Henry as "opposing God." Unperturbed, Henry took the floor and shocked the crowd by attacking King George III.
According to a contemporary biographer, Henry discussed the relationship between the King and his subjects. He reminded the jury - and the audience - that the King had given the province the right to make its own laws of taxation. Therefore, the Twopenny Act was a good and valid law.
"Even the King had no right to declare it void," said Henry. "When a King degenerates into a tyrant, he forfeits all right to obedience."
At this point, Lyons cried out to the judges: "The gentleman has spoken treason, and I am astonished that your worships can hear it without emotion or any mark of dissatisfaction."
But Henry spoke on, passionately, talking about the poverty of the people, the high taxation caused by the French wars, and failure of the tobacco crops.
"We have heard a great deal about the benevolence and holy zeal of our reverend clergy, but how is this manifested?" he demanded.
"Do they manifest their zeal to the cause of religion and humanity by practicing the mild and benevolent precepts of the Gospel of Jesus? Do they feed the hungry and clothe the naked? Oh, no, gentlemen. Instead, these rapacious harpies - were their power equal to their will - would snatch from the hearth of their honest parishioner his last hoe-cake."
At this point, the 20 clergymen attending the proceedings quit the courthouse in dismay. Shortly the jury left the room to deliberate. They returned five minutes later and awarded Parson Maury one penny.
Henry won his case by proclaiming the Anglican clergy as harpies and - for the first time - King George III as a tyrant.
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Two years after his Parsons' victory, Henry was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. Immediately he again took up the issue of the taxing power of the King by opposing the Stamp Act.
The English Parliament levied a tax requiring a stamp on every sheet of paper that appeared in public - newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets and broadsides, legal documents, licenses, playing cards, etc.
Henry rose from his seat in the Burgesses and moved that: "The General Assembly have the only and sole exclusive right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony, and that every attempt to vest such power in any person -- other than the General Assembly -- has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American Freedom"
The house was in an instant uproar. After "a long and warm debate" Henry rose once again with a now famous challenge.
Once more he attacked the King and the legitimacy of his powers: "Caesar had his Brutus. Charles the First his Cromwell. And George the Third may profit from their example."
Shouts of "Treason!" filled the room. Henry waited a bit and then declared: "If this be treason, make the most of it."
The Famous Speech
During the next decade, Henry became the most noted legislator in the colonies by opposing the various taxes levied by King George and his Parliament against the colonies.
After several frustrating years, British patience grew thin. The King in 1774 revoked the Massachusetts charter, put Gen. Thomas Gage in charge and closed the port of Boston.
In Virginia, the King's governor, Lord Dunsmore, dissolved the Assembly. However, the assembly refused to dissolve. Patrick Henry and his colleagues gathered in a nearby tavern where they declared themselves the Virginia Convention. It appointed Henry to represent them in the first Continental Congress already scheduled at Philadelphia.
The Congress concluded that "taxation without representation" was intolerable but could not decide what to do about it.
With this, the Virginia Convention met March 23, 1775, in St. John's Church in Richmond to consider its next move. This is where Henry made his most famous speech that I tried to emulate.
Henry took the floor to strengthen the resolve of wavering members:
"The question before the House is one of awful moment in this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery.
"Judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes of reconciliation with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and this house. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?
"Trust it not sir. Ask yourselves how this reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations that cover our waters and darken our land.
"These preparations are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have so long forged. Sir, we have done every thing that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, we must fight. I repeat it, sir, we must fight!
They tell us that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?
"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone. It is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery.
The war is inevitable - and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!
"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. Why stand we here idle?
"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 other may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
With his final sentence, say witnesses, "Mr. Henry took up a paper knife from his desk and presented it to his heart."
Damn! I wish I had known about that last, dramatic gesture. I would have won the Central High School declamation contest hands down.
Declaration Of Independence
The Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia - inspired by Henry's declaration at St. John's Church, produced the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The War for Independence began.
When the U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787, Henry opposed it on grounds it spoke as "we the people" instead of "we the states." He relented and backed the new constitution when ten amendments known as the Bill of Rights was added.
Author: Lindsey Williams
