Patrick Henry

by Thomas S. Kidd

  Although he had always been Britain’s chief adversary among Virginia patriots, even Patrick Henry did not quickly decide for independence. His reservations had less to do with moral qualms than with timing. The question that gave him pause was whether Americans should wait to secure alliances with France or Spain before declaring independence. A resolution for independence would be the main topic of debate at the next Virginia Convention, where Henry would again represent the people of Hanover County. Days after his selection as a convention representative, Henry received an urgent letter from Richard Henry Lee, a delegate in the Continental Congress, pleading with Henry to rally Virginia behind immediate American self-determination. “Ages yet unborn, and millions existing at present, must rue or bless that assembly, on which their happiness or misery will so eminently depend,” Lee wrote. “Virginia has hitherto taken the lead in great affairs, and many now look to her with anxious expectation.” As for the issue of waiting until potential allies came to America’s aid, Lee believed the nations of Europe would not align with America until it declared independence.19

  Dunmore’s November proclamation influenced the Congress to call for a day of prayer and fasting in May 1776, to repent for America’s sins and to ask God for wisdom about the next step its people should take in light of the “warlike preparations of the British Ministry to subvert our invaluable rights and privileges, and to reduce us, by fire and sword, by the savages of the wilderness, and our own domestics, to the most abject and ignominious bondage.” The Congress failed to note the contradiction inherent in their fear that the British incitement of Americans’ “domestics” (slaves) would force free whites into bondage. They hoped that “through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ” they might obtain forgiveness and victory. They further asked for God to “direct them to the most efficacious measures for establishing the rights of America on the most honorable and permanent basis.” In other words, they sought God’s guidance on whether they should declare independence now. The Virginia Convention happily complied with the request to observe the solemn day, with delegates instructing their chaplain, Thomas Price, to preach at Williamsburg’s Anglican church, Bruton Parish, on the occasion.20

  By the time its people appointed a new convention, many in Virginia had already decided in favor of immediate independence. Freeholders from Charlotte County directed their delegates to support a break with Britain right away. Their instructions railed against the British government’s plot to destroy Americans’ liberty, declaring that British conspirators against freedom had sought to “enforce their arbitrary mandates by fire and sword, and likewise encouraging, by every means in their power, our savage neighbors, and our more savage domestics, to spill the blood of our wives and children.” The residents of Charlotte County believed “nothing is intended for us but the most abject slavery.” Fear of attacks from Indians as well as insurrection by slaves, both openly encouraged by the British, pushed these Virginians over the edge; now they would settle for nothing less than severing the connection with Britain.21

  Henry also wanted independence, but he continued to puzzle over the timing. We gather a sense of his reluctance from an insistent letter sent by General Charles Lee, a veteran of the Seven Years’ War whom the Congress named commander of the Southern Department of the unfolding conflict. Like Tom Paine, Lee had only recently moved from Britain to America, acquiring an estate in northwestern Virginia, and he had quickly become convinced that independence was inevitable. Lee was a peculiar person: tall, thin, slovenly, and generally unpleasant. John Adams called him a “queer creature” who took his large pack of dogs with him wherever he went. “You must love his dogs if you love him,” Adams wrote, “and forgive a thousand whims for the sake of the soldier.” Lee spoke with Henry about the break with Britain on May 6 and followed up with his letter the next day. He was exasperated that Henry thought Americans might need to wait on independence until they could be confident of foreign aid, and told Henry he had received intelligence that France in particular would come to America’s side. (Lee was eventually proven correct in this assumption.) Lee also insisted that the popular mood in Virginia, especially among the soldiers, favored American autonomy. “The spirit of the people (except a very few in these lower parts of Virginia whose little blood has been sucked out by mosquitoes) cry out for this declaration, the military in particular.” Because of Henry’s insight into the hearts of the fighting men, Lee felt sure that he would realize the time for independence was upon them. Any other path would lead to tyranny, he warned.22

  Henry was finally convinced. An immediate declaration of independence would put America in a stronger diplomatic position. Richard Henry Lee and Charles Lee persuaded him that France and Spain would never consider an alliance with America as long as it considered itself under the authority of Great Britain. Proclaiming independence would communicate America’s seriousness about forging ahead on its own, and it would show other European nations that they could make deals with America at Britain’s expense. The patriots would try to appease Britain no longer.

  The Virginia Convention was almost unanimously behind independence, but the wording of the declaration remained in question. Everyone expected Henry to deliver a final speech on the subject, in the tradition of his Stamp Act and “Liberty or Death” speeches, which would stir the delegates and help define their rhetoric. But Henry hung back, apparently wanting no one to think the convention had agreed to independence merely because of his emotional appeals. The convention considered several versions of resolutions, including one drafted by Henry but introduced by Thomas Nelson Jr., a Tidewater aristocrat and committed patriot. As usual, Henry produced the most radical resolution on the subject, accusing the British of “making every preparation to crush us” and inciting Indians and slaves to attack. It called King George III a tyrant and, in what it declared to be an act of self-preservation, dissolved Virginia’s relationship with Great Britain. It also insisted that the Continental Congress move immediately to declare the united colonies independent.23

  Having introduced this resolution, Henry waited to let consensus build before stepping forward. Finally, as Edmund Randolph put it, Henry “appeared in an element for which he was born. To cut the knot, which calm prudence was puzzled to untie, was worthy of the magnificence of his genius. He entered into no subtlety of reasoning but was roused by the now apparent spirit of the people as a pillar of fire, which notwithstanding the darkness of the prospect would conduct to the promised land.” In Randolph’s view, Henry led Virginians like Moses, out of the clutches of British enslavement.24

  A compromise version of the resolution for independence borrowed heavily from Henry’s, proclaiming that despite the colonists’ best attempts to reconcile with Britain, imperial officials wished to “effect our total destruction,” and singling out Lord Dunmore for “carrying on a piratical and savage war against us tempting our slaves by every artifice to resort to him and training and employing them against their masters.” The declaration was not as direct as Henry’s, but it certainly indicated that the Virginia Convention wanted the Continental Congress to declare independence for the colonies as a whole, which they would do in July. Virginians would take the lead there, too, with Richard Henry Lee introducing the motion for national independence, and Thomas Jefferson penning the declaration itself.25

  The convention unanimously adopted Virginia’s compromise resolution on May 15. Only one cautious delegate, Robert Carter Nicholas, spoke against independence, but even he decided not to register a vote against the resolution. Henry was delighted with the action taken, though not thrilled with the resolution’s wording. He wrote to John Adams that he “put up with [the resolution] in the present form, for the sake of unanimity. ’Tis not quite so pointed as I could wish.” Henry rarely felt that his colleagues moved fast enough, but in this case he conceded to moderation to preserve unity. A split vote for independence would have communicated the wrong message at this critical moment.26

  Wil
liamsburg broke out in celebration as the word spread. Residents took a collection to throw a party for local soldiers, who held a parade the day after the resolution passed. A new American union flag was flown from the capitol. Then, on May 17, delegates gathered at Bruton Parish Church for the day of prayer and fasting called earlier by the Continental Congress. The sermon for the day was on II Chronicles 20:15: “Thus saith the Lord unto you: Be not afraid, nor dismayed, by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s.”27

  Elsewhere in America, patriots rejoiced at the news of Virginia’s independence. John Adams wrote to Henry and exulted that “the decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty, than has prevailed in other parts of the earth, must be established in America.”28

  Having called for independence, the Virginia convention set about crafting a Declaration of Rights and a new state constitution. Henry played an important role on the committee delegated to prepare them. John Adams sent him suggestions for the constitution. “Happy Virginia, whose Constitution is to be framed by so masterly a builder,” he wrote. Henry would hardly act alone, of course. “The political cooks are busy in preparing the dish,” Edmund Pendleton wrote to Jefferson, and the main course of the convention was the Declaration of Rights. The committee drafting the Declaration was formidable, and it was Henry’s and young James Madison’s first opportunity to work together directly. But George Mason took the lead in writing the Declaration of Rights and the Virginia constitution. Mason, eleven years older than Henry, lived on the Gunston Hall estate on the Potomac River, close to George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Like Henry, Mason had little formal schooling, but he had read deeply in the traditions of constitutional law. In the Declaration of Rights, the Virginia Convention had an opportunity to ground the state’s political liberties on the inviolable basis of natural rights. What Mason and the convention produced would help shape America’s Declaration of Independence and, later, the Bill of Rights.29

  The first article of the Declaration proclaimed that “all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights.” This wording caused some consternation at the convention, when members such as Robert Carter Nicholas feared that it would fuel more unrest among the slave population. Edmund Randolph recalled that the convention generally felt that when “asserting the general rights of man, we ought not to be too nice and too much restricted in the delineation of them.” And planters did not consider slaves as members of political society; the article made clear that only members of that society could claim political rights. Within the month, Thomas Jefferson would modify Mason’s language in this article as he crafted the Declaration of Independence.30

  Edmund Randolph also remembered that Patrick Henry had proposed the fifteenth and sixteenth articles of the Declaration of Rights. Henry did not actually write these articles, which were penned by Mason and James Madison, respectively. But he undoubtedly backed their adoption. The fifteenth article distilled the kind of Christian republicanism Henry always propounded: “That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” Liberty would degenerate without virtue, Henry and his fellow founders believed, because true freedom served noble purposes. For a republic to stay on the right path, its leaders had to renew its reliance on the great traditional sources of morality and liberty—the classics of Greek and Roman antiquity, and the Bible—to test the legitimacy of current practices.31

  Henry played a critical role in crafting the Declaration of Rights’ sixteenth article, regarding religious freedom. Henry had long supported religious liberty in Virginia, going back to the ferment of the Great Awakening and to his role in the Parsons’ Cause of 1763. Henry had consistently worked in the House of Burgesses to establish legal toleration for dissenters. In an undated fragment probably written in the late 1760s or early 1770s, Henry declared that a society that permitted religious dissent was on the path to virtue and prosperity. No one denomination had an exclusive title to Christian morality, so allowing all to practice their faith freely would allow virtue to flourish, Henry averred. Such freedom would also attract a variety of European immigrants and workers, many of whom were Presbyterian, Lutheran, or other types of non-Anglican Christians, whose presence and hard work would strengthen the society’s moral and economic fiber. For Henry, such settlers were much preferable to bound African-Americans, because of slavery’s negative effects on whites and blacks. He feared that Virginia was becoming a “gloomy retreat of slaves,” and much preferred a diverse society of free European Protestants.32

  Religious pluralism was already becoming a salient tenet of the era’s revolutionaries. Henry and George Washington both supported having a variety of Protestant ministers serve as chaplains in the army. In 1775, Virginia Baptists petitioned the convention to allow their ministers to serve Baptist soldiers. During the May 1776 convention, Henry drafted a resolution allowing the practice. Similarly, Washington always encouraged a range of denominational chaplains in the Continental army; their presence fostered moral behavior, and ministers of different denominations defused religious controversies among the troops. Congress even authorized the employment of a Catholic chaplain to serve regiments from Canada.33

  Once the Virginia Convention declared independence from Britain, many in the state believed it was time to end the state’s support for the Anglican Church. For years, the Baptists had been petitioning the House of Burgesses for relief from the requirements of the Anglican establishment. Within days of independence, Baptists from Prince William County again petitioned the convention, arguing that since Americans were contending for their basic liberties, Virginians should also respect the fundamental religious rights of their fellow citizens. Disestablishing the Anglican Church would prevent internal divisions over religion in Virginia, they maintained, going on to ask that they be allowed to worship God with no state interference and be relieved from religious taxes that supported the Anglican Church. Henry was certainly sympathetic to their argument for religious freedom; he understood that the Anglican patriots should actively court the Baptists to win their support for independence. In a public letter he wrote in August, Henry praised the growing interdenominational spirit in America and declared that “the only contest among us, at this most critical and important period, is, who shall be foremost to preserve our religious and civil liberties.” As patriots, Anglicans and Baptists were “brethren who must perish or triumph together.”34

  Mason, Henry, and the other delegates were coming under considerable pressure to make a statement on religious freedom in the Declaration of Rights. After much debate, the committee concluded “that religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.” James Madison, who loathed the persecution of the Baptists, drafted this article. He also had Henry introduce an amendment to the article that seemed to imply disestablishment of the Anglican Church, asserting that “no man or class of men ought on account of religion to be invested with peculiar emoluments or privileges; nor subjected to any penalties or disabilities.” When other delegates challenged him, however, Henry denied that this amendment was intended to end state support for the Anglican Church, although that probably was Madison’s goal. Henry, unlike Madison, saw no inconsistency between state support for religion and religious freedom.35

  The convention formally approved the Declaration of Rights on June 12. The document was a momentous articulation of the human rights upon which government should not intrude. Virginia had adopted these articles, Edmund Randolph explained, so that “in all the revolutions of time, of human
opinion, and of government, a perpetual standard should be erected, around which the people might rally and by a notorious record be forever admonished to be watchful, firm, and virtuous.”36

  The convention, led by George Mason, also established a new state constitution, in which the lower house of the legislature, now called the House of Delegates, held most of the power. Henry was concerned that the proposed constitution gave too little authority to the governor. The convention apparently feared the dangers of executive power, having just entered a war against one of the world’s most powerful monarchs. But Henry believed that war required stronger executive power, and in the debates over the document, he insisted that the governor needed veto power over legislation. Henry declared that under the new constitution, the governor would be a “mere phantom,” dependent on the will of the legislators. Henry’s position on the governorship is somewhat strange, given that he would oppose the new federal Constitution in 1788 partly based on the expansive executive power it gave the president. But his stance also signaled Henry’s fundamental pragmatism: compared with Jefferson, Madison, and John Adams, Henry was always more concerned about responding to current circumstances than maintaining ideological purity.37

  On June 29, the same day they unanimously adopted the new constitution, the delegates voted for the commonwealth’s first governor. Ironically, they chose Henry, the chief critic of the new governor’s office. Whatever reluctance he may have felt, Henry accepted the position. Believing that “the lasting happiness or misery of a great proportion of the human species” was at stake in the war, he knew the state needed effective leadership more than ever.38

  Because Henry remained the most popular politician in Virginia, and a favorite of Virginia’s military, his election as governor garnered public support for the new government. Moderates may have also seen his election as a way of controlling Henry. It would not be the last time they would remove him from the legislature by making him governor. When the first legislature convened that fall, they chose Henry’s archenemy, Edmund Pendleton, as the first Speaker of the House of Delegates, which arguably was the most powerful position in the government. But legislative power—the ability to control the processes of government—is not the only kind of power. Henry’s personality would prove hard to contain, even in the governor’s mansion.39