(1736-1799)
[Footnote 3: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: Patrick Henry. [TN]]
Patrick Henry was born in Hanover County, Virginia, May 29, 1736; died
in Charlotte County, Virginia, June 6, 1799. He was the son of Colonel
John Henry, of Mount Brilliant, a Scotchman by birth, who was the nephew
of Dr. William Robertson, the historian. Henry received only the limited
education accessible in the rural locality in which he was born,
consisting of the rudiments of an English training and absolutely no
acquaintance with the classics. His early youth was spent on the
plantation, occupied with the amusements of his age and his epoch;
fishing and hunting gave him acquaintance with the fields, the streams,
and the forests, and the observation of nature, her changes, her forces,
and her moods. The habits thus formed evolved in part the great power of
introspection and analysis of the feelings of men which afterward gave
him such control of them.
At the age of fifteen he was placed in a country store as assistant
salesman, or clerk. After a year's experience, his father purchased a
small stock of goods for him, and set him up on his own account in
partnership with his brother William.
This adventure came to grief in a year, and then Henry, at the age of
eighteen, married Miss Shelton, the daughter of a neighboring farmer.
The young couple were settled on a farm by the joint efforts of their
parents, where they endeavored to win a subsistence with the assistance
of two or three servants. In two years he sold out and invested in
another mercantile undertaking. In a few years this ended in bankruptcy,
leaving him without a dollar and with a wife and an increasing family to
support. He was devoted to music, dancing, and amusement, and was
incapable of continuous physical or intellectual labor. He had devoted
himself to desultory reading of the best kind, and made himself
acquainted with the history of England, of Greece, and of Rome. He
therefore undertook to win a support by the profession and the practice
of the law, and after a brief pretence of preparation, by the generosity
of the bar at that period, was admitted to practice. The vigor of his
intellect, his powerful logic, and his acute analysis induced the
examining committee to sign his certificate.
That committee consisted of Mr. Lyons, then the leader of the Provincial
bar, afterward president-judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of
Virginia; Mr. John Lewis, an eminent lawyer, and John Randolph,
afterward knighted and as Sir John Randolph, the king's Attorney General
for Virginia. Henry was twenty-four when admitted to the bar, and for
three years did nothing.
Under the law of Virginia the people, without regard to religious
belief, were bound to pay a tax of so many pounds of tobacco per poll
for the support of the clergy. The parson of each parish was entitled to
sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco per annum. When the price of tobacco
was low this imposition was borne not without grumbling. When short
crops or increased demand raised the price, the General Assembly of the
colony by law allowed the people the option to pay their poll-tax in
tobacco, or to commute it at the fixed price of 16_s._ and 8_d._ per
hundred. When the market price was above that the tax was paid in
currency; when it was below, in tobacco. When tobacco rose to 50_s._ per
hundred the parsons demanded tobacco for their salaries instead of
16_s._ 8_d._ per hundred. The King in council declared the Commutation
Act void, and the parsons brought suit for their salaries. The
defendants pleaded the Commutation Act in defence; to this plea the
plaintiffs demurred; and the court, as it was bound to do, gave judgment
for the plaintiff on the demurrer. The only question then left was the
_quantum_ of damages, to be assessed by a jury. The case selected for a
test was the case of the Rev. James Maury against the sheriff of Hanover
County and his sureties. It was set for trial at the December term of
the County Court of Hanover, 1763. Henry was retained for the defendant,
and made an argument so forcible, so conclusive, and so eloquent that it
has made his fame as "the greatest orator who ever lived," as Mr.
Jefferson wrote of him. He took the ground that allegiance and
protection in government are reciprocal, that the King of Great Britain
had failed to protect the people of Virginia in their rights as
Englishmen, and that therefore they owed no allegiance to him and he had
no right to declare laws made by them void, therefore his nullification
of the Commutation Act was void and of no effect. The jury found for the
plaintiff with one penny damages, and thus ended the attempt to rely
upon the power of the king to set aside laws made by Virginia for her
own government.
It was the first announcement in America of the radical revolutionary
doctrine that government is a matter of compact with the people, and
when the former breaks the agreement, the latter are absolved from
obedience to it.
The next year Henry removed to Louisa County and was employed by
Dandridge in the contested election case of Dandridge _v._ Littlepage
before the House of Burgesses for a seat in that body. When the Stamp
Act passed in 1765, Mr. William Johnson, member of the House of
Burgesses for Louisa County, resigned his place to make way for Henry,
who was elected to fill the vacancy.
This body consisted of some of the ablest and most illustrious Americans
who ever lived. George Washington, Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland,
Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee were all members, and
Henry at the first session won a place in the front rank among them. In
May, 1765, he introduced a series of resolutions, reiterating and
enlarging the propositions of the parson's case, and declaring that the
people of Virginia are entitled to all the rights of British subjects,
and that they alone, through their General Assembly, "have the sole
right and power to lay taxes and impositions on this colony," and that
any attempt by any other authority "has a manifest tendency to destroy
British as well as American freedom." They were opposed by the old
members, but the eloquent logic of Henry, backed by Johnston, a member
from Fairfax, carried them by a close vote, the last one by a majority
of one.
In this debate, Henry in a passion of eloquence exclaimed, "Caesar had
his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George III.----"
"Treason," cried the Speaker and the House----"may profit by their
example. If this be treason, make the most of it."
The next day, the House in a panic, reconsidered, rejected, and expunged
from the _Journal_ the last resolution, which asserted the sole right
of taxation in Virginia, and denied it to Parliament.
Henry continued a member of the House of Burgesses from Louisa County
until the close of the Revolution. He led Virginia in resistance to the
tax on tea, and in organizing armed resistance to the Mother Country by
all the colonies. He was among the first of the Americans who understood
that liberty could only be preserved by defending it by force.
He was sent as a deputy from Virginia to the first Continental Congress,
which met at Philadelphia in September, 1774. He at once took a
commanding influence in that body, and on its adjournment in October,
returned home.
In March, 1776, he attended the Convention of Virginia held in Richmond.
Here he moved that "this colony be immediately put in a state of
defence, and that a committee be appointed to prepare a plan for
embodying, assigning, and disciplining such a number of men as may be
sufficient for that purpose." Bland, Harrison, Pendleton, and Nicholas,
all vigorously opposed these resolutions as leading inevitably and
logically to revolution and separation; but Henry, in a storm of
patriotic, eloquent enthusiasm, carried everything, uttering those
deathless sentences, "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 resolutions were carried and Henry made chairman of the committee to
organize the colony. He proceeded with great vigor to form companies of
cavalry or infantry in every county. On April 20, 1775, Lord Dunmore,
the royal governor, seized the powder of the colony and placed it on the
armed schooner Magdalene. The country rose at once. Henry, as captain,
marched the independent company of Hanover on Williamsburgh, to compel
the governor to pay for or restore the powder. Five thousand armed men
were marching from the counties to reinforce him, when Lord Dunmore,
through the intercession of Peyton Randolph, paid Henry for the powder
and induced the volunteers from Hanover, Frederick, Berkeley, and other
counties to return to their homes. As soon as they had returned, Dunmore
issued a proclamation denouncing Henry and his comrades as traitors and
rebels.
Henry was elected by the Virginia Convention one of the deputies to the
second Continental Congress. He was also elected colonel of the first
Virginia Regiment, and "commander-in-chief of all the forces raised and
to be raised for the defence of the colony." Lord Dunmore having erected
a fortification south of Norfolk, at Great Bridge, Colonel Woodford,
with the second Virginia Regiment, was sent by the Committee of Safety
to drive him away, which he did promptly and well. Henry claimed the
right to command this expedition himself, but his claim was not admitted
by the committee, and his authority was disclaimed by Colonel Woodford.
Henry insisted upon having the question of rank between them decided,
and the committee decided in favor of Colonel Henry. Yet when brigadiers
were selected by Congress to command the troops of Virginia in the
Continental Army, Andrew Lewis was made brigadier, Henry colonel of the
first regiment. He promptly refused the Continental commission, and
resigned the one held in the service of Virginia. Henry's conduct was
justified in the opinion of his contemporaries and of posterity. He had
led the colony at the risk of life and fortune, he had organized and led
the first movement of troops against the royal authority, he had been
appointed commander-in-chief and colonel of the First Regiment, and then
had been superseded in command by another, without excuse or
justification. He was thus driven out of the military service by petty
intrigues and small jealousies of smaller men, and the country deprived
of his great abilities in the military field.
On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention instructed their deputies in
Congress "to declare the United Colonies free and independent States,"
and on June 29th adopted a form of State government and elected Mr.
Henry governor. During the winter of 1776-77 was the darkest period of
the revolution, and it has been charged that it was proposed to create
him dictator; but his friends have always denied this, and it seems with
truth, for he was re-elected governor, May 30th, 1777. He was a firm
supporter of General Washington through all the trials of that period,
and firmly stood by him against the intrigue in the army to supersede
him with Gates. He was again elected governor in the spring of 1778, and
the next year declined a re-election because in his opinion he was
ineligible. His wife, Miss Shelton, died in 1775, leaving him the father
of six children, and in 1777 he married Dorothea, daughter of Nathaniel
W. Dandridge.
After the expiration of his gubernatorial service he retired to his
estate in Henry County. He was elected to the General Assembly for that
County in 1780, and he continued to represent it until after the
revolution. He took the ground of amnesty to the Tories and the
resumption of commercial intercourse with Great Britain. In 1784, he
introduced and urged the passage of a bill to promote inter-marriages
with the Indians, which failed to pass from his being again elected
governor on November 17, 1784, for the term of three years.
He declined a re-election, and was appointed one of the deputies from
Virginia to the Constitutional Convention to meet in Philadelphia. The
order of appointment being George Washington, Patrick Henry, Edmund
Randolph, John Blair, James Madison, George Mason and George Wythe. He,
however, was too poor to perform the duties of the office and was
obliged to return to the practice of the law. He was sent as a member
from Prince Edward to the convention to consider the Federal
Constitution which had been framed at Philadelphia. The convention met
at Richmond, June 2, 1788.
It was composed of the most illustrious men that Virginia ever produced,
and was probably the ablest body that ever convened in any country in
any age. James Madison, John Marshall, James Monroe, Edmund Pendleton,
George Nicholas, George Mason, Jarvis, Grayson, and Henry, Lee, and
Randolph were among the members. Henry vigorously opposed the
ratification of the new constitution on the ground that it would
establish a government of the people in place of a government of the
States, and would create a consolidated government with omnipotent
power, without check or balance, and lead to a great and mighty empire
and an absolute despotism. The Federal party carried the ratification
under the lead of Madison and Marshall by a majority of ten.
In the ensuing General Assembly Henry opposed the election of Madison as
one of the first senators under the new constitution, and secured that
of Richard Henry Lee and Grayson to represent Virginia in the first
Congress. He also drafted and had passed resolutions calling upon
Congress to call a Constitutional Convention of the States to cure by
amendments the many defects in the Federal Constitution which were
indicated by the amendments proposed to it by Virginia. The Convention
was never called, but ten of the amendments were adopted by Congress and
ratified by the States.
He declined a re-election to the General Assembly in 1791, and retired
to private life. In November, 1791, he appeared before the Federal Court
in Richmond, for the defendant in the case of the British debts. The
question involved was the right of Virginia to confiscate, during the
war, debts due by her citizens to subjects of Great Britain. With Henry
was John Marshall, and in the argument Henry made the greatest legal
effort of his life.
In November, 1795, he was again elected Governor of Virginia, but
declined on account of his age. He was offered the mission to Spain by
Washington during his first term, and to France during his second--both
of which positions he declined. Alarmed at the position taken by the
Virginia resolutions of 1798, he became a candidate for, and was elected
to the General Assembly from Charlotte County in 1799. But the Virginia
Legislature was opposed to his views, and reiterated those set forth in
the resolution of 1798.
His health had been infirm for several years, and he died June 6, 1799.
The General Assembly passed resolutions recording their love and
veneration for his name and fame, and ordered a bust of him to be
procured and set up in one of the niches of the hall of the House of
Delegates. It is now in the capitol at Richmond.
[Signature of the author.]