Founding Myths

Founding Myths Page 18

by Ray Raphael

  Undaunted, Wirt filled in the blanks according to his own discretion. He wanted to write a tale that would inspire American youth, and for that he did not need to stick too closely to the historical record. “The present and future generations of our country can never be better employed than in studying the models set before them by the fathers of the Revolution,” he wrote to John Adams.3

  In 1817, twelve years after he started his project, William Wirt published the first biography of Virginia’s Revolutionary folk hero: Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry.4 He dedicated his book “to the young men of Virginia,” whom he hoped would emulate the hero of his tale. No matter that he invoked poetic license; his goals were to stimulate patriotism and sell books, and he was successful on both counts. Wirt’s book immediately became a mainstay of popular history. Reprinted twenty-five times in the next half century, it furnished much material that would be used in promoting a nationalist spirit—including the famous “liberty or death” speech, which finally appeared in print forty-two years after it was delivered and eighteen years after the great orator’s death.5

  How accurate is Wirt’s rendition?

  Three decades after Henry delivered his inspirational call to arms, Wirt corresponded with men who had heard the speech firsthand and others who were acquainted with men who were there at the time. All agreed that the speech had produced a profound impact, but it seems that only one of Wirt’s correspondents, Judge St. George Tucker, tried to render an actual text. Tucker’s letter to Wirt has been lost, but we do have a letter from Wirt to Tucker that states, “I have taken almost entirely Mr. Henry’s speech in the Convention of ’75 from you, as well as your description of its effect on you verbatim.”6

  Scholars have argued for years whether the speech we know is primarily the work of William Wirt or St. George Tucker.7 But what about Patrick Henry? How much of the speech is his?

  Some of those favoring the Tucker hypothesis suggest that the speech published by Wirt is a fairly accurate rendering, since Tucker himself was there at the time. By his own admission, however, Tucker’s account of the speech was based on “recollections,” not recorded notes. “In vain should I attempt to give any idea of his speech,” he wrote. Tucker attempted a reconstruction of only two paragraphs (the first two in the selection included here), which constitute less than one-fifth of the speech.8 Even this much is suspect. It seems improbable that St. George Tucker could commit Henry’s words to memory, then reproduce them accurately several decades later. He might have captured the basic gist, but what about the diction and cadence, so crucial to the art of oratory? And what about the rest of the speech, which amounted to 1,217 words? Where did all those words originate?

  Imagine, in our own times, the task of trying to re-create the words of a speech delivered forty-two years ago if we had no written record. That was the same amount of time between the first printing of Founding Myths in 2004 and when John F. Kennedy, on October 22, 1962, delivered one of the most striking and fateful addresses in the history of this or any nation. Then, President Kennedy told the American people that the Soviet Union was trying to place missiles in Cuba, just ninety miles from the United States shore, and that he had just ordered a “quarantine” of Cuban waters. If Soviet ships attempted to make any deliveries, they would have to fight American ships. Kennedy’s action, which brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust, was a pivotal moment of the Cold War and among the scariest moments in history, when the very existence of human life on earth seemed threatened.

  But forty-two years later, who, without prompting from the record, could remember Kennedy’s exact words? They too were stirring—something about the path being full of hazards, but the greatest danger would be to do nothing at all—but was that really the way he said it? And what else did he say? Millions watched and heard the speech, some might have even jotted down some notes, but who could reconstruct the speech decades later if they had not taken notes at the time?9

  Those of us old enough to remember the speech will recall the emotions—the fears and apprehensions of the moment—much better than the words. We might also recall Kennedy’s deportment and tone. So it was with Patrick Henry. He had delivered an inspiring and very hawkish speech with great dramatic flair—people could remember that. But to recall the exact words he used to excite those patriotic feelings is another matter altogether.

  FEAR AND LOATHING

  Henry’s speech, as we know it, owes much to the oratorical genius of William Wirt and St. George Tucker, in some combination, and it reflects the agendas of nineteenth-century nationalists who were fond of romanticizing war. To idealize war, however, much has to be left out. In the “liberty or death” speech that these men supposedly resurrected, key components of Patrick Henry’s popular appeal are mysteriously absent. Henry’s sentiments, and those of the men he addressed, were not always so noble as Wirt wanted his readers to believe.

  In fact, we do have one account of Henry’s speech that was recorded at the moment, not years later—and this version is seriously out of sync with Wirt’s later rendition. In a letter dated April 6, 1775, James Parker wrote to Charles Stewart,

  You never heard anything more infamously insolent than P. Henry’s speech: he called the K——a Tyrant, a fool, a puppet, and a tool to the ministry. Said there was no Englishmen, no Scots, no Britons, but a set of wretches sunk in Luxury, that they had lost their native courage and (were) unable to look the brave Americans in the face. . . . This Creature is so infatuated, that he goes about I am told, praying and preaching amongst the common people.10

  Even allowing for the bias of an unsympathetic observer, Parker’s account is plausible. As in any era, hawkish patriots during the American Revolution probably questioned the enemy’s courage, descended to name-calling, and appealed to widespread fear. Demagoguery is the underbelly of oratory, yet “wretches sunk in Luxury” did not make it into Wirt’s rendition.

  Less than one month after Henry delivered his “liberty or death” speech, fear of slave uprisings helped trigger the onset of the Revolution in the South. In the spring of 1775, white citizens of Virginia believed that African Americans held in bondage were planning to rise up, rebel, and go on a murderous rampage against them. Fearful whites panicked and prepared for the worst—and Patrick Henry, one of the largest slaveholders of his county, was among them. Before dawn on April 21 the royal governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, dispatched a party of marines to seize gunpowder stored in the magazine at Williamsburg. Later that day, infuriated patriots gathered to protest. One newspaper reported their reasoning:

  The monstrous absurdity that the Governor can deprive the people of the necessary means of defense at a time when the colony is actually threatened with an insurrection of their slaves . . . has worked up the passions of the people . . . almost to a frenzy.11

  Governor Dunmore at first claimed he had seized the powder so the slaves couldn’t get to it. Shortly afterward, however, he changed his stance: if the patriots harmed a single British official, he pronounced, he would “declare Freedom to the Slaves, and reduce the City of Williamsburg to Ashes.”12

  This only kindled the flames of rebellion. Within the next few days at least seven counties hastily formed “independent companies,” partly because the British had just shed blood at Lexington and Concord, but also in response to Dunmore’s threat. In Fredericksburg on April 29, more than six hundred members of these companies prepared to march against the governor in Williamsburg. Dunmore reiterated his threat to raise the slaves, saying he would do so immediately if the companies proceeded with their plans.

  Moderates convinced most of these companies to disband, but two companies persisted: Albemarle and Hanover. The Albemarle volunteers voted to conti
nue to Williamsburg “to demand satisfaction of Dunmore for the powder, and his threatening to fix his standard and call over the negroes.”13 But they too soon turned back, leaving the field to the company from Hanover—under the leadership of Patrick Henry, a slave owner with much to lose.14

  The Hanover County committeemen were not of one mind, but Henry, with many friends and relatives on the committee, carried the day. Because of “apprehension for their persons and property,” they decided to march on the capital. Since Dunmore had threatened to raise the slaves while simultaneously seizing gunpowder that whites could use to defend themselves, Henry and the majority of the Hanover men felt they were likely to suffer “calamities of the greatest magnitude, and most fatal consequences to this colony” unless they went on the offensive.15 In the end, the incipient rebellion triggered by Dunmore’s actions reached a negotiated (albeit temporary) settlement: the British paid for the powder they had seized, and the Hanover company went home.

  Later that year, when Lord Dunmore formally offered to free any slaves who joined the British army, Colonel Patrick Henry of the First Virginia Regiment took it upon himself to publicize Dunmore’s action far and wide. (For more on Dunmore’s offer of freedom, see chapter 11.) This time Henry’s exact words were set in writing, and there can be no doubt he used fear as a rallying cry:

  As the Committee of Safety is not sitting, I take the Liberty to enclose you a Copy of the Proclamation issued by Lord Dunmore; the Design and Tendency of which, you will observe, is fatal to the publick Safety. An early and unremitting Attention to the Government of the SLAVES may, I hope, counteract this dangerous Attempt. Constant, and well directed Patrols, seem indispensably necessary.16

  Slaves were not the only objects of fear—Indians might cause trouble as well. One of the independent companies that threatened to march on Williamsburg noted that Dunmore had tried “to render (at least as far as in his power so to do) this colony defenceless, and lay it open to the attacks of a savage invasion, or a domestick foe [a common euphemism for enslaved people].”17 This theme was repeated often in complaints about British policies issuing from the Southern states: the king, Parliament, and royal governors were inciting Indian attacks as well as slave insurrections. The following summer, Congress formalized these complaints in the Declaration of Independence. The king, it said, “has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages.”

  Patrick Henry, like many white Virginians, speculated in western lands. In 1767 he acquired two tracts from his father-in-law that he couldn’t even find when he went looking for them. According to notes he made in his fee book, he knew these were cut off by territory that had been “allotted to the Indians by a treaty,” but he purchased them anyway, “hoping that line would be altered.” Eventually it was: “After many contests and much altercation with the Indians,” as well as with other colonists and British officials on both sides of the Atlantic, the line was changed so he could secure most of the land. Henry knew, as did other white Virginians, that both native people and imperial officials stood in the way of land speculation and white settlement of the West.18

  With access to land at issue, it is little wonder that Henry advocated military invasions of Indian country. In 1778, as governor of Virginia, he increased the military support for frontier settlements and sanctioned a company of “Volunteers” who set out to raid Indian territory.19 The following year he authorized an expedition into distant territory inhabited by the Chickamaugas, militant Cherokees who resisted white domination.20 Following the Revolutionary War, while arguing for American rights to navigate the Mississippi River, he declared he would sooner part from the Union than with the Mississippi.21 Before, during, and after the Revolution, Henry was an avid expansionist. His own self-interest, as well as the interest of many other Virginians, demanded it.

  In his efforts to arouse public opinion against Britain, which had tried to shut down white settlement of the trans-Appalachian territories, Patrick Henry likely made some appeal to the prevailing anti- Indian sentiments. Since western lands would be easier to acquire with Britain out of the way, playing to fears of a British-Indian alliance would aid Revolutionary recruitment (see chapter 14). Likewise, it is difficult to imagine that Henry did not play the “slave card”—his ace in the hole—in his politicking. Yet nowhere in any of his speeches, as rendered by later writers, do we see even a hint of pandering to instincts less noble than the love of liberty. His speeches, quite literally, have been whitewashed.

  ANOTHER DOCTORED SPEECH

  “Liberty or death” was not the only speech to receive a touch-up. Ten years earlier, in his first year as a representative to Virginia’s House of Burgesses, Henry had stepped forth to offer a dramatic denunciation of the Stamp Act. According to William Wirt:

  It was in the midst of this magnificent debate, while he was descanting on the tyranny of the obnoxious act, that he exclaimed, in a voice of thunder, and with the look of a god, “Caesar had his Brutus—Charles the first, his Cromwell—and George the third—(‘Treason,’ cried the speaker—‘treason, treason,’ echoed from every part of the house.—It was one of those trying moments which is decisive of character.—Henry faltered not for an instant; but rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the speaker an eye of the most determined fire, he finished his sentence with the firmest emphasis)—may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.”22

  In this version of the story, reconstructed a half century after the fact, Patrick Henry dramatically defied his detractors. At the time, however, a French traveler who observed the event firsthand noted that Henry responded to the charge of “treason” quite differently:

  Shortly after I Came in one of the members stood up and said he had read that in former times tarquin and Julius had their Brutus, Charles had his Cromwell, and he Did not Doubt but some good American would stand up, in favour of his Country, but (says he) in a more moderate manner, and was going to Continue, when the speaker of the house rose and Said, he, the last that stood up had spoke treason, and was sorey to see that not one of the members of the house was loyal Enough to stop him, before he had gone so far.

  [U]pon which the Same member stood up again (his name is henery) and said that if he had affronted the speaker, or the house, he was ready to ask pardon, and he would shew his loyalty to his majesty King G. the third, at the Expence of the last Drop of his blood, but what he had said must be attributed to the Interest of his Country’s Dying liberty which he had at heart, and the heat of passion might have lead him to have said something more than he intended, but, again, if he said anything wrong, he begged the speaker and the houses pardon. Some other Members stood up and backed him, on which that afaire was droped.23

  The discrepancies between these two accounts are striking. While nineteenth-century Romantics depicted Henry as defiant in the face of numerous critics, the firsthand witness stated clearly and emphatically that Henry apologized for his excess not once but twice, and that the charge of “treason” came only from the Speaker of the House, not from a chorus of members. Henry was not a solitary hero standing tall in the face of numerous adversaries; instead, he tried to cover his bases when it appeared he had overreached his bounds. By backpedaling, Henry acted wisely and astutely—but not heroically.

  The Romantic versions of both these speeches—“liberty or death” and “Caesar had his Brutus”—glorify bold defiance. They also glorify oratory itself. At a time when many Americans did not have the ability to read learned dissertations on politics, everybody could hear and respond to a speech. Oratory was crucial to the creation of American nationalism. It is no surprise that William Wirt was something of an orator himself: he served as the
keynote speaker to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 1826.

  Oratory has its uses, but it can also drown out compromise, reasoned consideration, and dissent. Hawkish oratory, taken at face value, functions as military recruitment. Noble sentiments lead impressionable boys and young men to offer up their lives in service to their nation or cause. This danger intensifies when one orator pumps up the words of another, as with Wirt and Henry. Patriots of the early republic sanctified their nationalism and expansionism by appealing to the hallowed tradition of the Revolution. Even if the words came from Wirt, the “liberty or death” speech played better when attributed to the “Son of Thunder,” the legendary orator from a generation past.

  Through much of the nineteenth century, countless schoolchildren practiced memorization and recitation by delivering and dramatizing the “liberty or death” speech. Little did they know that the words they spoke did not come from Patrick Henry, or that the noble sentiments they expressed concealed baser motives. Today, we do know these things, yet Henry’s call to arms is still featured in many current texts. Students no longer recite the speech, but “give me liberty, or give me death” still tells them that marching off to war is admirable and patriotic. In her History of US, Joy Hakim provides a complete stage set for the speech, which she repeats verbatim with no credit to Wirt: “Henry stepped into the aisle, bowed his head, and held out his arms. He pretended his arms were chained.” After quoting several sentences, she concludes, “Then Patrick Henry threw off the imaginary chains, stood up straight, and cried out, ‘Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!’ ”24

 

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