Patrick Henry

by Thomas S. Kidd

  Henry insisted to the president that his refusal had nothing to do with any animosity between him and Washington. Nor did he harbor continuing resentment toward the government under the new Constitution. “Believe me sir, I have bid adieu to Federal and Antifederal ever since the adoption of the present government, and in the circle of my friends [I] have often expressed my fears of disunion amongst the states from [a] collision of interests, but especially from the baneful effects of faction. In that case the most I can say is that if my country is destined in my day to encounter the horrors of anarchy, every power of mind and body which I possess will be exerted in support of the government under which I live and which has been fairly sanctioned by my countrymen. I should be unworthy [of] the character of a republican or an honest man, if I withheld my best and most zealous efforts, because I opposed the Constitution in its unaltered form.”32

  Henry hinted at his resistance to the Jay Treaty with Britain only at the end of the letter. He told Washington that if “evil, instead of good, grows out of the measures you adopt,” he hoped people would judge Washington’s motives fairly. Although Henry had opposed Washington on the Constitution, and although he clearly had doubts about the Jay Treaty, his respect for Washington would never allow him to break publicly with the president.33

  The Jay Treaty was harmful to the nation, Henry thought, but its negotiation and adoption accorded with the tenets Madison had set out in the Constitution. In a 1796 letter to Betsey, Henry made clear that although he did not approve of the treaty—“a very bad one indeed”—he thought it hypocritical for Madison and supporters of the Constitution to deny the president and Senate’s exclusive right to make treaties. Republicans in Congress were trying to stop the House of Representatives from funding appropriations required to enforce the treaty, which would effectively give the House a voice in its ratification. But Henry had no sympathy for such intrigues; Madison, he believed, was simply reaping what he had sown.34

  Despite Henry’s repeated refusals, offers for public service persisted. Harry Lee continued to tell Washington that Henry might be willing to accept some kind of appointment. In December 1795, Lee invited Henry to become chief justice of the Supreme Court, an office recently made vacant by John Jay’s resignation. (Jay, remarkably, had served simultaneously as chief justice and special envoy to Great Britain.) Henry hesitated to respond, to the growing irritation of George Washington, who did not like offering positions to people not certain to accept. After waiting two weeks for a response, Washington scolded Lee and told him that the delay was “embarrassing in the extreme.” He had other appointments waiting to be made, and the Supreme Court’s meeting was only weeks away. Henry ultimately declined. Amazingly, he still crossed Washington’s mind as a possible successor to James Monroe as ambassador in Paris in July 1796, although he was sure Henry would never accept the position.35

  Thomas Jefferson was convinced that Washington was offering these positions even though he knew Henry would refuse. The Federalists, he thought, wanted to create the impression that Henry was on their side. “Most assiduous court is paid to P.H.,” Jefferson wrote to James Monroe. “He has been offered every thing which they knew he would not accept.” As Washington’s frustration with Lee showed, however, the president actually wanted Henry in the administration and was not much interested in making symbolic job offers. He saw Henry as a relatively nonpartisan figure on foreign affairs, neither strongly anti-French nor pro-French, who would not jeopardize the administration’s official policy of neutrality. Of course, Henry had no fondness for the British. He expected that the British would renew their oppression of the United States whenever the opportunity presented itself. 36

  BUT THE FRENCH WERE HARDLY an acceptable ally, either. Henry was increasingly worried about the emerging anti-Christian implications of the French Revolution, as well as the deistic attacks on Christianity that many of that revolution’s friends championed. Increasingly serious about his own faith, Henry believed more fervently than ever that a strong republic needed robust religion to preserve it from corruption, turmoil, and violence.

  Many traditional Christians in the United States had initially welcomed the French Revolution as a movement akin to their own, and one that would undermine the long-despised Catholic Church. But the French Revolution began to take an ugly anti-Christian turn in 1792, with the massacre of hundreds of priests and the conversion of some churches into Temples of Reason.

  To many observers, the anti-Christianism of the French Revolution coincided with the rise of a militant new deism in America, a surge symbolized and incited by the 1794 publication of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason. This book by the former hero of the American Revolution attacked traditional Christianity as a tool of political oppression. Here was Paine’s deistic creed:I believe in one God, and no more: and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

  I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.

  But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

  I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

  Paine’s assault found an eager audience in the United States. Although it was originally published in France, where Paine had gone to support the Revolution, The Age of Reason appeared in seventeen American editions between 1794 and 1796.37

  The rising anti-Christian spirit of the French Revolution and the threat of deism confirmed that Henry could never align with America’s pro-French Jeffersonian party. Aside from his personal history with Jefferson, and his political battles with Madison, Henry increasingly believed that he needed to defend traditional Christianity against Francophile deism. That meant keeping his distance from Jefferson’s party, if not openly siding with the Federalists. His deepening concern for Christian fidelity was reflected in a lengthy 1796 letter to Betsey:The view which the rising greatness of our country presents to my eyes is greatly tarnished by the general prevalence of Deism which with me is but another name for vice and depravity. I am however much consoled by reflecting, that the religion of Christ has from its first appearance in the world, been attacked in vain by all the wits, philosophers, and wise ones, aided by every power of man and its triumph has been complete. What is there in the wit or wisdom of the present Deistical writers or professors that can compare them with Hume, Shaftsbury, Bolingbroke, and others? And yet these have been confuted and their fame decaying, insomuch that the puny efforts of Paine are thrown in to prop their tottering fabrick, whose foundations cannot stand the test of time.

  Despite his occasionally inconsistent application of virtue in his land deals and legal practice, Henry continued to believe that the success of the republic depended upon the power of virtue, which he saw as rooted in traditional religion. For Henry, the publication of Paine’s Age of Reason was troubling because it essentially encouraged public sinfulness. Once freed from the restraints of the Bible and morality, he believed, skeptical Americans would naturally pursue selfishness and immorality. As he said in his letter to Betsey, Henry worried that he had not sufficiently identified himself as a practicing, traditional Christian:Amongst other strange things said of me, I hear it is said by the Deists that I am one of their number, and indeed that some good people think I am no Christian. This thought gives me much more pain than the appellation of Tory, because I think religion of infinitely higher importance than politics, and I find much cause to reproach myself that I have lived so long and have given no decided and public proofs of my being a Christian. But indeed my dear child this is a character which I prize far above all this world has or can boast.38

  Some have suggested that religion might have become more
important to Henry as he grew older (at the time of the publication of The Age of Reason, Henry was fifty-eight). He seemingly had become more reflective about his faith, and about his country’s religious commitments. We might also speculate that he was concerned that his personal business had not always reflected spotless Christian character. But Henry also believed that with Paine’s writings and Jefferson’s well-known skepticism challenging the nation’s spiritual foundations, Americans could no longer take their religious heritage for granted. He feared that without fidelity to long-established religious precepts, the United States would spin apart in an atheistic whirlwind, just like Revolutionary France.

  Henry might have wished he had shown himself to be more of a Christian leader, but in the 1790s his fellow Americans increasingly honored him as an exemplar of virtue. His reluctance to enter national politics only enhanced his popularity. Some newspapers even began calling him “Saint Patrick.” Just as they admired Washington for his resignation from military service in 1783, Americans loved Henry’s willingness to give up power to pursue the private life. Both Washington and Henry, in the popular view, fulfilled the ancient ideal of Cincinnatus, the Roman leader who wielded power only so long as it took to defeat Rome’s enemies, then returned to his simple life on the farm. Henry’s withdrawal from the public arena charmed the American people, buttressing his image as a classic hero.39

  Henry may never have been so admired nationally as in 1796, when some Federalists tried to convince him to run for president to replace the retiring Washington. Despite their old differences over the Constitution and debt financing plan, even Alexander Hamilton briefly pursued the idea of supporting Henry. John Marshall and Harry Lee spoke with Henry in Richmond in May 1796 about whether he would be willing to run. Unsurprisingly, he was not. Hamilton quickly decided “to be rid of P.H.” and moved on to Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina as his preferred candidate. Nationally circulated editorials made the case for Henry as president well into the fall. One Virginia writer promoted Henry as a better candidate than Jefferson because of Henry’s courage and patriotism, recalling his leadership during the Revolution, his excellent service as Virginia governor, and his “praise-worthy conduct since the adoption of the federal constitution” (apparently this person did not approve of Henry’s opposition to the Constitution). Conversely, the writer denounced Jefferson primarily because of the notorious episode in 1781 when he abandoned his office in the face of British invasion.40

  In a letter circulated just before the election, Henry reiterated his unwillingness to serve as president. He did not explain why he would not accept the office, but we may assume that the same reasons as before guided his choice: his health, debts, and desire to stay out of politics. He also had watched with disgust how Washington had been treated like an ordinary politician in his last years in office. “If he whose character as our leader during the whole war was above all praise is so roughly handled in his old age, what may be expected to men of the common standard of character?” he wondered. If he entered national politics, Henry suspected that he would face the same kind of opprobrium when public opinion turned against him. He concluded his letter with the hope that “wisdom and virtue may mark the choice about to be made of a President.” Henry certainly approved of the election of his old friend John Adams over his rival Thomas Jefferson.41

  Attempts to bring Henry back into office remained relentless. In November the Virginia legislature voted to make Henry the governor for a sixth term. It is difficult to know whether Henry grew tired of these invitations, or whether he was flattered by the unceasing attention. In any case, he declined the governorship, just as he had refused the other enticements, writing that his “advanced age and decayed faculties” made acceptance impossible. He wrote bluntly that he could not see “any important political good in reach of the office of governor,” noting that Virginia’s chief executive could make little difference in confronting the gravest crisis of the day, which was in foreign affairs.42

  Henry averred that regardless of who was serving in public office, the United States’ most important ally should be virtue. Without that trait, the nation would not last long. Selfishness would ruin the country, and factional squabbling would lead to disunion. Part of Henry’s reluctance about serving in office lay in his doubts about the efficacy of politics itself. Government could suppress vice and encourage morality, but it could never change the hearts of people. France was not America’s real enemy. “The enemy we have to fear,” Henry wrote, “is the degeneracy, luxury, and vices of the present times. Let us be allied against these and we secure the happiness and liberty of our country.”43

  Henry’s commitment to the Federalists was tested by the adoption of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. Fears about the French immigrant population in America, and anger over Republican attacks on the Federalists, led to these controversial, suppressive laws. The Alien Act allowed the president to summarily expel noncitizen foreigners deemed dangerous to the safety of the country. This ominous law was never enforced, but the Sedition Act was, which made it illegal to say or publish anything of a “false, scandalous, or malicious” nature against the government. Fourteen people were eventually prosecuted under the law, and one Republican congressman from Vermont was actually jailed for sedition. The Sedition Act revealed how fragile the First Amendment’s protection of free speech was and exacerbated sectional tensions, with almost all southern congressmen opposing the measure. Just as Henry had contemplated the possibility of secession a decade earlier, some southern political leaders again discussed the viability of a separate southern republic that would remove itself from a tyrannical national government intent on suppressing dissent. Led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, respectively, Kentucky and Virginia passed resolutions against the Alien and Sedition Acts. (Even though Jefferson was Adams’s vice president, the state legislature of Kentucky recruited him to pen its resolution. He agreed to do so anonymously.) The resolutions argued that the acts represented an unconstitutional confiscation of power by the national government and that the Sedition Act violated the First Amendment. Asserting states’ right to check usurpations by the national government, Jefferson’s resolution declared the acts void.

  The Sedition Act showed that the Federalist-dominated government could indeed run roughshod over the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. Henry’s predictions about the national government’s unstoppable power seemed to be coming true. Given this outrageous intrusion on the people’s rights, it would seem likely that Henry would issue a self-satisfied, cautionary “I told you so.” But by 1798, the nation’s political alignments had changed so dramatically that Henry chose to maintain circumspection. Although he could never bring himself to support the Alien and Sedition Acts, he did endorse the Virginia Federalist candidate John Marshall for Congress, convinced that for all its avowal of the power of national government, the party of Washington still represented the path of political virtue.

  As a fellow Virginia Federalist, Henry found John Marshall a sympathetic character. Twenty years younger than Henry, Marshall was a cousin of Thomas Jefferson, but he had opposed Jefferson on most major issues. He had returned in 1798 from service as an envoy to France, where his delegation found themselves subject to demands for bribes from French agents dubbed W, X, Y, and Z in the newspapers. The affair worsened tensions with the French and positioned Marshall for a run for Congress from the Richmond district, which included Henry’s old home of Hanover County. Despite the Federalists’ growing unpopularity in the South, Marshall made it known that he would not have supported the Alien and Sedition Acts had he been in Congress, a stance that elicited the ire of New England Federalists. But Marshall also came out against the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, because he believed that the Alien and Sedition Acts were simply bad laws, not unconstitutional ones. Having stood against both French corruption and the Alien and Sedition Acts, Marshall was the only kind of Federalist who could win election in Virginia in 1799. Yet he wou
ld still have a hard time winning, thanks to his lack of support for the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Some Republicans even circulated the rumor that Henry opposed Marshall. Doubting the truth of these reports, and looking to tip the balance in their candidate’s favor, Virginia Federalists approached Henry about endorsing Marshall.44

  Wishing to crush the rumor, Henry publicly recommended Marshall for Congress. In his endorsement—in the form of a letter to the Virginia Federalist Archibald Blair—Henry explained that his support for Marshall turned upon the Federalists’ advocacy for American union and traditional virtue. He said he suspected that certain Republicans (Jefferson and Madison?) were seeking to either overturn the government or dissolve the Union. (This was an ironic charge, given the identical accusations of antinationalism leveled against Henry for the past decade.) He expressed perplexity about the state of foreign affairs but agreed that the French government had behaved intolerably. France’s intrigues were dangerous, but not as dangerous as its anti-Christianism. The French Revolution, he wrote, was “destroying the great pillars of all government and of social life; I mean virtue, morality, and religion.... Infidelity in its broadest sense under the name of philosophy is fast spreading and that under the patronage of French manners and principles.” In light of the French threat, and Marshall’s calm resolve in the face of their insults and requests for bribes, Henry gave him his highest endorsement: “tell Marshall I love him because he felt and acted as a Republican, as an American.” In the end, Marshall won by a thin margin. Patrick Henry’s support was essential to the victory.45