PATRICK HENRY - THE STATESMAN
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.
HARRY AMMON
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beeman, Richard - PATRICK HENRY (1974) Henry, William Wirt - PATRICK HENRY: LIFE, CORRESPONDENCE, AND SPEECHES, 3 vols. (1891) Mead, Robert Douthat - PATRICK HENRY, 2 vols. (1957-62).
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