Patrick Henry

by Thomas S. Kidd

  Jefferson would recall that he, Henry, and other radical members of the assembly met privately to discuss resistance to the Port Bill, and decided to call for prayer and fasting on the day the Port Bill went into effect. This was a clever move, for what Christian gentleman could argue—except perhaps the imperial governor—against holding a day of prayer? In the decade since the Seven Years’ War, Virginians had grown unaccustomed to holding such solemn days, so Jefferson, Henry, and the others rummaged through old Puritan precedents and crafted a declaration “to implore heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King and parliament to moderation and justice.” The instigators recruited the moderate, notably religious Robert Carter Nicholas to introduce the resolution, which passed unanimously.33

  Predictably, Governor Dunmore did not appreciate this action and promptly dissolved the assembly. The Burgesses took another stroll down the street to the Raleigh Tavern, where they adopted a plan for the boycott called the “association.” The association asserted that the Boston Port Bill evidenced a plot “for reducing the inhabitants of British America to slavery.” Slave-owning Burgesses such as Henry and Jefferson saw no irony in their own fear of bondage to the British. They readily employed such metaphorical language to articulate their dread of becoming economic pawns of the empire.34

  The boycott proposed by the association applied to most goods produced by the East India Company, but not all British trade items. Members decided against a general boycott to cause the least damage to British merchants and manufacturers, whom colonial leaders viewed as potential allies in the contest with the empire, just as they had been in the battle over the Stamp Act. Making their solidarity with Massachusetts clear, the Burgesses proclaimed that an attack on one colony represented an attack on all of British America. They also called for a general congress of the colonies to discuss resistance to the British threat. Beyond the system adopted by the association, the Virginia committee of correspondence also worked to promote extralegal resistance and cooperation with other colonies. Shortly after the dissolution of the assembly, they approved a New York plan for a general American congress, and they called for a convention in Williamsburg in August 1774 to nominate delegates to attend the congress.

  Virginia’s counties followed through with the appointed day of prayer and fasting on June 1. Jefferson wrote that the day was like a “shock of electricity,” focusing the colonists’ attention on the gravity of the crisis. In Williamsburg, Peyton Randolph assembled a solemn audience at the courthouse, from which they proceeded to the Bruton Parish Church, where the Reverend Thomas Price, chaplain of the House of Burgesses, preached on the text “the Lord hath prepared his seat in heaven, and his kingdom ruleth over all.” To the colonists, God’s providence presided over the trouble with Britain, and God’s law was sovereign over the arbitrary acts of men. Surely providence would vindicate the righteousness of their lawful cause.35

  THE UNREST IN THE COLONIES only escalated in the summer of 1774, as news arrived of more parliamentary moves against Massachusetts and the colonies. Known in America as the Intolerable Acts, these laws included the Massachusetts Government Act, which dramatically reduced the power of the colony’s elected officials; the Administration of Justice Act, under which royal officials charged with capital crimes could be tried in England; and a revised Quartering Act, which gave the British power to take over private buildings—even homes—for the quartering of British soldiers. The British viewed these measures as necessary responses to Massachusetts’s recklessness, while many colonists saw the laws as the unfolding of the newest stages in Britain’s plan of tyranny.

  In Virginia, the Intolerable Acts generated a surge of popular anxiety, and a host of petitions from the counties. In Hanover County, citizens appointed Patrick Henry and his ne’er-do-well half-brother, John Syme, as delegates to the Williamsburg convention in August. Then they adopted a resolution, which may have been drafted by Henry and Syme, assessing the imperial crisis. It called for the repeal of the Intolerable Acts and united colonial action against them. It also declared that the Atlantic slave trade was “dangerous to the virtue and welfare of this country” and advocated that it be banned.36

  The convention that assembled in Williamsburg in August adopted a stringent new association vowing to ban all imports (except for medicine) from Great Britain. They also resolved to stop importing slaves. Declaring that since tea represented “the detestable instrument which laid the foundation of the present sufferings of our distressed friends in the town of Boston, we view it with horror,” they went so far as to ban not only the importation of tea, but even the brewing of any remaining tea in homes.37

  The convention also appointed seven delegates to attend the American colonial congress, scheduled to assemble in Philadelphia the following month. The delegation’s members ranged from the zealous to the grave. Among them were Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, Edmund Pendleton, Richard Bland, George Washington, and Patrick Henry. Thomas Jefferson was absent from the convention due to illness, and was not chosen. Edmund Randolph recalled that Lee and Henry were selected because of their reputation for eloquence, while Washington was chosen in case the congress decided to raise an army.38

  On the evening of August 30, Henry and Pendleton rendezvoused at Washington’s Mount Vernon estate, on the banks of the Potomac River. On the 31st, Washington jotted in his diary “with Colo. Pendleton, & Mr. Henry I set out on my journey for Phila.” The party arrived in Philadelphia on September 4. The Virginians had stepped onto a bigger American stage.39

  5

  “LIBERTY OR DEATH”

  Arming for Revolution

  PHILADELPHIANS RECEIVED HENRY, Washington, and Pendleton as heroes. Hundreds of officers, militiamen, and a troupe of musicians met them several miles outside the city and escorted them through the streets to “great applause.” Philadelphia was the largest town in America at the time, with about 34,000 residents. Though just under a hundred years old, it had already become one of the most economically developed cities in the British Empire. To many of the delegates—including Patrick Henry—the sights of the metropolis must have been a bit overwhelming.1

  The residents of Philadelphia were packed chiefly into eight blocks running from the Delaware River waterfront to Eighth Street. At the docks, ships from across the Atlantic loaded and unloaded their cargo. Philadelphia stood at a fine natural port on the river, which widened farther south into Delaware Bay, and finally the ocean. Some ships at the docks trafficked in slaves, despite the historic resistance of Pennsylvania’s Quakers to slavery. In 1774, thousands of slaves still lived in Pennsylvania; not until 1780 would the state put in place a plan for gradually abolishing slavery. As Henry and the other delegates made their way to Carpenter’s Hall on Chestnut Street, Philadelphia offered them a startling mix of refinement and crudeness: it featured such renowned institutions as the American Philosophical Society and the Library Company of Philadelphia, both founded by Ben Franklin, but packs of pigs and mangy dogs also roamed freely. Residents complained about the vile practice of leaving dead horses and other carcasses in the streets.2

  Thanks to his eloquence, boldness, and charm, Henry quickly cemented his reputation among the delegates as a dynamic advocate for American rights. But other Virginians also influenced the debates and actions of the Congress, among them Peyton Randolph, who was unanimously chosen as its chair. A dazzling cast of characters from beyond Virginia was present, too, many of whom would lead their states through the Revolution and the adoption of the Constitution. Roger Sherman, a devout Christian and lawyer from Connecticut, went on to become the only person to sign all four of the great state papers of the American founding: the Continental Association (which the Continental Congress adopted as a means to enforce the boycott of British goods), the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution. Massachusetts sent the dynamic Adams cousins, Samuel an
d John. John Adams, older than Henry by only seven months, was one of the great political thinkers among the Americans. Though they never became particularly close friends—Adams moved in national political circles while Henry mostly remained in Virginia—the two men certainly shared a radical commitment to American liberties, and a deep respect for each other’s convictions. As Adams wrote to Henry in 1776, “I esteem it an honor and a happiness, that my opinion so often coincides with yours.”3

  In his first speech to the Congress, Henry argued for proportional representation in Congress—the distribution of voting power to each colony based on its population. Some delegates charged that he was trying to give the large colonies power over the small ones. According to John Adams, Henry declared that a delegate’s loyalty to his specific colony should take second place to the imperative of continental unity. “Government is dissolved,” he proclaimed, meaning that the upheaval over taxes had already annulled the old colonial system. He heralded the advent of a new American nation. “Fleets and armies and the present state of things show that government is dissolved. Where are your landmarks, your boundaries of colonies? We are in a state of nature.... The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.” Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Congress, remarked that Henry spoke more like a Presbyterian pastor than a politician. Evangelical fervor was continuing to infuse power into Henry’s speeches.4

  Henry’s soaring rhetoric masked a complex agenda, at least on this occasion. On one hand, he clearly believed that Anglo-Americans had common interests to protect against the tyrannical encroachments of empire. On the other, Henry struggled to accept the notion that an emerging political entity—America—should command a higher allegiance than his home colony, even as the radical patriots felt impelled to advocate for unprecedented American union.

  In the interest of concerted action, Henry maintained a harmonious tone in his relations with the other colonies. In one concession, he did abandon hope that the Congress would count slaves for the purpose of representation—an effort that anticipated a similar controversy over slaves at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Southern planters were not seeking political rights for their slaves, but they did want them to count as residents to boost their states’ population numbers and thus increase their legislative muscle. But in 1774, Henry knew this position would not earn him favor among northerners in the Congress, and he dropped the idea rather than risk a debate over slavery.5

  Among the Congress’s most provocative actions was the adoption of the Suffolk Resolves, which were originally passed in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and introduced to the Congress by Samuel Adams, and which declared that colonists should resist the Intolerable Acts “as the attempts of a wicked administration to enslave America.” The Congress also denounced the recently announced Quebec Act, a parliamentary measure that allowed the open practice of Roman Catholicism in Canada. To anxious colonists and congressional delegates, the act evidenced a sinister religious plot. The Quebec Act, the resolves asserted, endangered the Protestant religion in America, and “therefore as men and Protestant Christians we are indispensably obliged to take all proper measures for our security.” When the Congress adopted the resolves, John Adams declared it one of the happiest days of his life.6

  With the approval of the Suffolk Resolves, it might have seemed as if radical delegates had won control of the Congress. Later that month, however, Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania introduced a proposal for a modified political union between Britain and America, which featured a grand council of the colonies that would handle intercolonial issues but remain subservient to Parliament. As recorded in John Adams’s notes, Henry argued against this new, more moderate plan, insisting that the “original constitution of the colonies was founded on the broadest and most generous base. The regulation of our trade was compensation enough for all the protection we ever experienced from her.... We are not to consent by the representatives of representatives. I am inclined to think the present measures lead to war.” The moderates’ proposal failed, when what Galloway called the “violent party” of Henry and Samuel Adams convinced a slight majority of Congress not to use halfway political measures to stave off a looming confrontation with Britain. Henry resented the moderate faction. When John Adams met privately with him on October 11, 1774, Henry railed against Galloway, John Jay, and others whose conciliatory plans would “ruin the cause of America.” But Henry publicly tempered his voiced opinion of the moderates to preserve congressional harmony.7

  Henry had impressed Adams and a number of the other delegates with his passionate oratory in defense of American liberty. Silas Deane, a delegate from Connecticut, wrote that Henry was the “compleatest speaker I ever heard . . . but in a letter I can give you no idea of the music of his voice, or the highwrought yet natural elegance of his style and manner.” Deane noted that some had begun calling Henry the Demosthenes of America (and Richard Henry Lee the Cicero). The moniker was a significant one; the patriots revered the memory of the ancient Greek and Roman republics, and Demosthenes was a heroic defender of Greek liberty against the powerful empire builder Alexander the Great. Keenly aware of historical precedents in their struggle for liberty, Americans had begun to associate their champions with the republican heroes of old.8

  A WEEK BEFORE HIS DEPARTURE from Philadelphia, Henry’s sister Anne Christian wrote a letter revealing some of Henry’s personal circumstances during these months. “My brother Pat is not returned from Philadelphia yet,” she wrote. “His wife is extremely ill.” This letter evinces the friendly informalities of Henry’s family, as they sometimes called him “Pat”—even as its contents revealed Sarah Henry’s declining health. Little specific information exists about her condition, but by late 1774 Sarah seems to have descended into what we might characterize as extreme depression or perhaps even a violent and unpredictable form of insanity. Whatever her diagnosis, she now lived her life confined to the basement of the mansion at Scotchtown. The records are uncertain even about the details of her fate, but it is known that she died, apparently in early 1775.9

  As was typical of women in colonial families, Sarah had spent much of her married life pregnant and tending to small children. At the time of her death, she and Patrick had six children. The oldest, Martha, was already twenty years old and married, the second, John, was eighteen, but the other four were young; all were born in the twelve years between 1763 and Sarah’s passing. Patrick was a devoted father, a commitment no doubt intensified by Sarah’s illness and death. He later developed a particularly close relationship with his daughter Elizabeth, who was born in 1769. Their sixth child—and their only one born at Scotchtown—was Edward (called “Neddy”), born in 1771.10

  Memories recorded long after the fact recalled that Sarah had become deranged, suicidal, and perhaps violent toward others, maybe even toward her young children, which would explain her confinement to an isolated portion of her home. Few other options would have existed at the time for treating or housing the mentally ill. A state mental hospital had just opened in Williamsburg, but it was tiny, with twenty-four beds, and meant primarily for patients whose only other alternative was jail. Although the opening of this hospital represented a progressive step toward recognizing the medical realities of mental illness, the treatments offered there were, by modern standards, barbaric. Mostly doctors attempted to balance patients’ bodily “humors”—a balance that, in Hippocratic medicine, would supposedly produce health by routines of bleeding and vomiting. It is unlikely that Henry would have even considered the hospital as an option. Though it is difficult to assess Sarah’s condition or the nature of her confinement, there is no reason to think Patrick’s treatment of her was negligent or cruel. We will never know quite what happened in Sarah’s declining months, but it seems likely that Henry arranged for her to be as comfortable as possible, without harming herself or others.11

  HENRY MUST HAVE EXPERIENCED great
personal turmoil during his wife’s illness, but during her decline and death, he managed to maintain his involvement in political affairs. He traveled to Richmond in March 1775 for the second session of the Virginia Convention at St. John’s Church, which would be the scene of his “Liberty or Death” speech. The freeholders of Hanover County had once again chosen him and John Syme as their delegates, instructing them to support the collection of the colonial taxes required to secure their liberty. They also encouraged the delegates to explore measures to provide for the families of Virginians killed or wounded in a 1774 war against Native Americans in western Virginia. This second injunction suggested the emerging belief among Virginians that the convention constituted an independent provincial government, which would care for veterans’ families, among other tasks.12

  At the convention, the combustion among the delegates began when Edmund Pendleton offered a resolution endorsing a 1774 petition from the legislature of Jamaica (which, like Virginia, was a British colony). The Anglo-Jamaicans had strongly protested recent British actions as a “plan almost carried into execution, for enslaving the colonies, founded, as we conceive, on a claim of Parliament to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever,” even as they struck a moderate tone by affirming George III’s right to veto colonial legislation. Endorsement of this sentiment would have communicated Virginia’s desire for a “speedy return of those halcyon days, when we lived a free and happy people.”13

  A perturbed Henry struck back against Pendleton with amendments calling for Virginia to assume a defensive posture against Britain—that is, through the raising of a militia that would hopefully replace British regular troops. Moderates balked at this bold statement, because it assumed that armed conflict with Britain was unavoidable. Henry would not back down, however. He rose to call Virginia to arms.