CONSEQUENCES
Seldom has a celebrated man shown more indifference to the
preservation of the records and credentials of his career than did
Patrick Henry. While some of his famous associates in the Revolution
diligently kept both the letters they received, and copies of the
letters they wrote, and made, for the benefit of posterity, careful
memoranda concerning the events of their lives, Patrick Henry did none
of these things. Whatever letters he wrote, he wrote at a dash, and
then parted with them utterly; whatever letters were written to him,
were invariably handed over by him to the comfortable custody of luck;
and as to the correct historic perpetuation of his doings, he seems
almost to have exhausted his interest in each one of them so soon as
he had accomplished it, and to have been quite content to leave to
other people all responsibility for its being remembered correctly, or
even remembered at all.
To this statement, however, a single exception has to be made. It
relates to the great affair described in the latter part of the
previous chapter.
Of course, it was perceived at the time that the passing of the
Virginia resolutions against the Stamp Act was a great affair; but
just how great an affair it was, neither Patrick Henry nor any other
mortal man could tell until years had gone by, and had unfolded the
vast sequence of world-resounding events, in which that affair was
proved to be a necessary factor. It deserves to be particularly
mentioned that, of all the achievements of his life, the only one
which he has taken the pains to give any account of is his authorship
of the Virginia resolutions, and his successful championship of them.
With reference to this achievement, the account he gave of it was
rendered with so much solemnity and impressiveness as to indicate
that, in the final survey of his career, he regarded this as the one
most important thing he ever did. But before we cite the words in
which he thus indicated this judgment, it will be well for us to
glance briefly at the train of historic incidents which now set forth
the striking connection between that act of Patrick Henry and the
early development of that intrepid policy which culminated in American
independence.
It was on the 29th of May, 1765, as will be remembered, that Patrick
Henry moved in the committee of the whole the adoption of his series
of resolutions against the Stamp Act; and before the sun went down
that day, the entire series, as is probable, was adopted by the
committee. On the following day, the essential portion of the series
was adopted, likewise, by the House. But what was the contemporary
significance of these resolutions? As the news of them swept from
colony to colony, why did they so stir men's hearts to excitement, and
even to alarm? It was not that the language of those resolutions was
more radical or more trenchant than had been the language already used
on the same subject, over and over again, in the discussions of the
preceding twelve months. It was that, in the recent change of the
political situation, the significance of that language had changed.
Prior to the time referred to, whatever had been said on the subject,
in any of the colonies, had been said for the purpose of dissuading
the government from passing the Stamp Act. But the government had now
passed the Stamp Act; and, accordingly, these resolutions must have
been meant for a very different purpose. They were a virtual
declaration of resistance to the Stamp Act; a declaration of
resistance made, not by an individual writer, nor by a newspaper, but
by the legislature of a great colony; and, moreover, they were the
very first declaration of resistance which was so made.[73]
This it is which gives us the contemporary key to their significance,
and to the vast excitement produced by them, and to the enormous
influence they had upon the trembling purposes of the colonists at
that precise moment. Hence it was, as a sagacious writer of that
period has told us, that merely upon the adoption of these resolves by
the committee of the whole, men recognized their momentous bearing,
and could not be restrained from giving publicity to them, without
waiting for their final adoption by the House. "A manuscript of the
unrevised resolves," says William Gordon, "soon reached Philadelphia,
having been sent off immediately upon their passing, that the earliest
information of what had been done might be obtained by the Sons of
Liberty.... At New York the resolves were handed about with great
privacy: they were accounted so treasonable, that the possessors of
them declined printing them in that city." But a copy of them having
been procured with much difficulty by an Irish gentleman resident in
Connecticut, "he carried them to New England, where they were
published and circulated far and wide in the newspapers, without any
reserve, and proved eventually the occasion of those disorders which
afterward broke out in the colonies.... The Virginia resolutions gave
a spring to all the disgusted; and they began to adopt different
measures."[74]
But while the tidings of these resolutions were thus moving toward New
England, and before they had arrived there, the assembly of the great
colony of Massachusetts had begun to take action. Indeed, it had first
met on the very day on which Patrick Henry had introduced his
resolutions into the committee of the whole at Williamsburg. On the
8th of June, it had resolved upon a circular letter concerning the
Stamp Act, addressed to all the sister colonies, and proposing that
all should send delegates to a congress to be held at New York, on the
first Tuesday of the following October, to deal with the perils and
duties of the situation. This circular letter at once started upon its
tour.
The first reception of it, however, was discouraging. From the speaker
of the New Jersey assembly came the reply that the members of that
body were "unanimously against uniting on the present occasion;" and
for several weeks thereafter, "no movement appeared in favor of the
great and wise measure of convening a congress." At last, however, the
project of Massachusetts began to feel the accelerating force of a
mighty impetus. The Virginia resolutions, being at last divulged
throughout the land, "had a marked effect on public opinion." They
were "heralded as the voice of a colony.... The fame of the resolves
spread as they were circulated in the journals.... The Virginia
action, like an alarum, roused the patriots to pass similar
resolves.[75] "On the 8th of July, "The Boston Gazette" uttered this
most significant sentence: "The people of Virginia have spoken very
sensibly, and the frozen politicians of a more northern government say
they have spoken treason."[76] On the same day, in that same town of
Boston, an aged lawyer and patriot[77] lay upon his death bed; and in
his admiration for the Virginians on account of these resolves, he
exclaimed, "They are men; they are noble spirits."[78] On the 13th of
August, the people of Providence instructed their representatives in
the legislature to vote in favor of the congress, and to procure the
passage of a series of resolutions in which were incorporated those of
Virginia.[79] On the 15th of August, from Boston, Governor Bernard
wrote home to the ministry: "Two or three months ago, I thought that
this people would submit to the Stamp Act. Murmurs were indeed
continually heard; but they seemed to be such as would die away. But
the publishing of the Virginia resolves proved an alarm bell to the
disaffected."[80] On the 23d of September, General Gage, the commander
of the British forces in America, wrote from New York to Secretary
Conway that the Virginia resolves had given "the signal for a general
outcry over the continent."[81] And finally, in the autumn of 1774, an
able loyalist writer, looking back over the political history of the
colonies from the year of the Stamp Act, singled out the Virginia
resolves as the baleful cause of all the troubles that had then come
upon the land. "After it was known," said he, "that the Stamp Act was
passed, some resolves of the House of Burgesses in Virginia, denying
the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, made their appearance. We
read them with wonder; they savored of independence; they flattered
the human passions; the reasoning was specious; we wished it
conclusive. The transition to believing it so was easy; and we, and
almost all America, followed their example, in resolving that
Parliament had no such right."[82]
All these facts, and many more that might be produced, seem to point
to the Virginia resolutions of 1765 as having come at a great primary
crisis of the Revolution,--a crisis of mental confusion and
hesitation,--and as having then uttered, with trumpet voice, the very
word that was fitted to the hour, and that gave to men's minds
clearness of vision, and to their hearts a settled purpose. It must
have been in the light of such facts as these that Patrick Henry, in
his old age, reviewing his own wonderful career, determined to make a
sort of testamentary statement concerning his relation to that single
transaction,--so vitally connected with the greatest epoch in American
history.
Among the papers left by him at his death was one significantly placed
by the side of his will, carefully sealed, and bearing this
superscription: "Inclosed are the resolutions of the Virginia Assembly
in 1765, concerning the Stamp Act. Let my executors open this paper."
On opening the document, his executors found on one side of the sheet
the first five resolutions in the famous series introduced by him; and
on the other side, these weighty words:--
The within resolutions passed the House of Burgesses in May,
1765. They formed the first opposition to the Stamp Act, and
the scheme of taxing America by the British parliament. All
the colonies, either through fear, or want of opportunity to
form an opposition, or from influence of some kind or other,
had remained silent. I had been for the first time elected a
Burgess a few days before; was young, inexperienced,
unacquainted with the forms of the House, and the members
that composed it. Finding the men of weight averse to
opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, and
that no person was likely to step forth, I determined to
venture; and alone, unadvised, and unassisted, on a blank
leaf of an old law book, wrote the within.[83] Upon
offering them to the House, violent debates ensued. Many
threats were uttered, and much abuse cast on me by the party
for submission. After a long and warm contest, the
resolutions passed by a very small majority, perhaps of one
or two only. The alarm spread throughout America with
astonishing quickness, and the ministerial party were
overwhelmed. The great point of resistance to British
taxation was universally established in the colonies. This
brought on the war, which finally separated the two
countries, and gave independence to ours.
Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse, will depend
upon the use our people make of the blessings which a
gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they
will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary
character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can
exalt them as a nation.
Reader! whoever thou art, remember this; and in thy sphere
practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.
P. HENRY.[84]
But while this renowned act in Patrick Henry's life had consequences
so notable in their bearing on great national and international
movements, it is interesting to observe, also, its immediate effects
on his own personal position in the world, and on the development of
his career. We can hardly be surprised to find, on the one hand, that
his act gave deep offence to one very considerable class of persons in
Virginia,--the official representatives of the English government, and
their natural allies, those thoughtful and conscientious colonists
who, by temperament and conviction, were inclined to lay a heavy
accent on the principle of civil authority and order. Of course, as
the official head of this not ignoble class, stood Francis Fauquier,
the lieutenant-governor of the colony; and his letter to the lords of
trade, written from Williamsburg a few days after the close of the
session, contains a striking narrative of this stormy proceeding, and
an almost amusing touch of official undervaluation of Patrick Henry:
"In the course of the debate, I have heard that very indecent language
was used by a Mr. Henry, a young lawyer, who had not been above a
month a member of the House, and who carried all the young members
with him."[85] But a far more specific and intense expression of
antipathy came, a few weeks later, from the Reverend William Robinson,
the colonial commissary of the Bishop of London. Writing, on the 12th
of August, to his metropolitan, he gave an account of Patrick Henry's
very offensive management of the cause against the parsons, before
becoming a member of the House of Burgesses; and then added:--
"He has since been chosen a representative for one of the
counties, in which character he has lately distinguished
himself in the House of Burgesses on occasion of the arrival
of an act of Parliament for stamp duties, while the Assembly
was sitting. He blazed out in a violent speech against the
authority of Parliament and the king, comparing his majesty
to a Tarquin, a Caesar, and a Charles the First, and not
sparing insinuations that he wished another Cromwell would
arise. He made a motion for several outrageous resolves,
some of which passed and were again erased as soon as his
back was turned.... Mr. Henry, the hero of whom I have been
writing, is gone quietly into the upper parts of the country
to recommend himself to his constituents by spreading
treason and enforcing firm resolutions against the authority
of the British Parliament."[86]
Such was Patrick Henry's introduction to the upper spheres of English
society,--spheres in which his name was to become still better known
as time rolled on, and for conduct not likely to efface the impression
of this bitter beginning.
As to his reputation in the colonies outside of Virginia, doubtless
the progress of it, during this period, was slow and dim; for the
celebrity acquired by the resolutions of 1765 attached to the colony
rather than to the person. Moreover, the boundaries of each colony, in
those days, were in most cases the boundaries likewise of the personal
reputations it cherished. It was not until Patrick Henry came
forward, in the Congress of 1774, upon an arena that may be called
national, that his name gathered about it the splendor of a national
fame. Yet, even before 1774, in the rather dull and ungossiping
newspapers of that time, and in the letters and diaries of its public
men, may be discovered an occasional allusion showing that already his
name had broken over the borders of Virginia, had traveled even so far
as to New England, and that in Boston itself he was a person whom
people were beginning to talk about. For example, in his Diary for the
22d of July, 1770, John Adams speaks of meeting some gentlemen from
Virginia, and of going out to Cambridge with them. One of them is
mentioned by name as having this distinction,--that he "is an intimate
friend of Mr. Patrick Henry, the first mover of the Virginia resolves
in 1765."[87] Thus, even so early, the incipient revolutionist in New
England had got his thoughts on his brilliant political kinsman in
Virginia.
But it was chiefly within the limits of his own splendid and gallant
colony, and among an eager and impressionable people whose habitual
hatred of all restraints turned into undying love for this dashing
champion of natural liberty, that Patrick Henry was now instantly
crowned with his crown of sovereignty. By his resolutions against the
Stamp Act, as Jefferson testifies, "Mr. Henry took the lead out of the
hands of those who had heretofore guided the proceedings of the
House, that is to say, of Pendleton, Wythe, Bland, Randolph, and
Nicholas."[88] Wirt does not put the case too strongly when he
declares, that "after this debate there was no longer a question among
the body of the people, as to Mr. Henry's being the first statesman
and orator in Virginia. Those, indeed, whose ranks he had scattered,
and whom he had thrown into the shade, still tried to brand him with
the names of declaimer and demagogue. But this was obviously the
effect of envy and mortified pride.... From the period of which we
have been speaking, Mr. Henry became the idol of the people of
Virginia."[89]
FOOTNOTES:
[73] See this view supported by Wirt, in his life by Kennedy, ii. 73.
[74] Gordon, _Hist. of Am. Rev._ i. 131.
[75] Frothingham, _Rise of the Republic_, 178-181.
[76] Cited in Frothingham, 181.
[77] Oxenbridge Thacher.
[78] _Works of John Adams_, x. 287.
[79] Frothingham, 181.
[80] Cited by Sparks, in Everett, _Life of Henry_, 396.
[81] Frothingham, _Rise of the Republic_, 181.
[82] Daniel Leonard, in _Novanglus and Massachusettensis_, 147, 148.
[83] As the historic importance of the Virginia resolutions became
more and more apparent, a disposition was manifested to deny to
Patrick Henry the honor of having written them. As early as 1790,
Madison, between whom and Henry there was nearly always a sharp
hostility, significantly asked Edmund Pendleton to tell him "where the
resolutions proposed by Mr. Henry really originated." _Letters and
Other Writings of Madison_, i. 515. Edmund Randolph is said to have
asserted that they were written by William Fleming; a statement of
which Jefferson remarked, "It is to me incomprehensible." _Works_, vi.
484. But to Jefferson's own testimony on the same subject, I would
apply the same remark. In his Memorandum, he says without hesitation
that the resolutions "were drawn up by George Johnston, a lawyer of
the Northern Neck, a very able, logical, and correct speaker." _Hist.
Mag._ for 1867, 91. But in another paper, written at about the same
time, Jefferson said: "I can readily enough believe these resolutions
were written by Mr. Henry himself. They bear the stamp of his mind,
strong, without precision. That they were written by Johnston, who
seconded them, was only the rumor of the day, and very possibly
unfounded." _Works_, vi. 484. In the face of all this tissue of rumor,
guesswork, and self-contradiction, the deliberate statement of Patrick
Henry himself that he wrote the five resolutions referred to by him,
and that he wrote them "alone, unadvised, and unassisted," must close
the discussion.
[84] Verified from the original manuscript, now in possession of Mr.
W. W. Henry.
[85] Cited by Sparks, in Everett, _Life of Henry_, 392.
[86] Perry, _Hist. Coll._ i. 514, 515.
[87] _Works of John Adams_, ii. 249.
[88] _Works of Jefferson_, vi. 368.
[89] _Life of Henry_, 66.