Patrick Henry
A participant in virtually every aspect of the founding of America, Patrick Henry leveraged his eloquence as a Patriot and became the Revolution’s most renowned orator.
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A Virginia Man
Patrick Henry (1736-1799) was born on May 29 in Hanover County, Virginia, to a prosperous Scottish-born planter.
Distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.
— George Mason
Fiery Words
After trying his hand at a number of livelihoods, Henry turned to educating himself in British and colonial law. In April 1760, the Virginia bar admitted Henry and he quickly became known for his oratory, arguing a thousand cases in his first three years. Henry was a 29-year- old freshman, just days into his service in the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg, when his fiery attack on the Stamp Act first lit the fuse of revolution. His Stamp Act Resolves and rhetoric against British tyranny soon became legendary.
Known Passion, Unknown Words
Although his speech at the March 1775 Second Virginia Convention was said to be memorable, historians debate whether or not he used the words “give me liberty or give me death” as his speeches are all reconstructed from memory. He never wrote them down in advance.
Continued Service
Henry served in the Continental Congress and took up residence in the Governor’s Palace after being elected Virginia’s first governor, serving from 1776 to 1779 and 1784 to 1786. Like George Mason, he refused to support the Constitution because it lacked a bill of rights.
Henry married twice, first to Sarah Shelton, and then to Dorothea Dandridge. He fathered 17 children. He died on June 6, 1799.
Seven Facts about Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry is best remembered for his famed “Liberty or Death” speech, but his contributions to the birth of our nation are immeasurable. He served for more than 20 years as a Burgess, member of Congress, Commander-in-Chief of the Virginia Army, and first governor of Virginia for five terms.
Keep going to learn a few things you might not know about this Unsurpassed orator, known by his contemporaries as “the Voice of the Revolution.”
1. Mr. Henry was quite the nomad
Throughout his lifetime, he resided in 14 different homes: Studley, Mt. Brilliant, Pine Slash, Rural Plains, Hanover Tavern, Roundabout, Scotchtown, Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, Leatherwood, Governor's Mansion in Richmond, Salisbury, Pleasant Grove, Long Island (not the New York one), and Red Hill.
2. Patrick Henry was a distiller
In his last years at Red Hill, Mr. Henry had three licenses to distill whiskey for sale. It is estimated that he was producing between 2,000 and 3,000 gallons per year by the time of his death in 1799, which supplemented his income substantially. Mr. Henry did not consume his own product, being “most abstemious as to spiritous drink.” Rye whiskey became very popular after the Revolution because it was cheaper to transport than the bushels of grain from which it was made, and less expensive than imported rum.
3. He was both respected and despised
From the mid-1770s until his retirement from public life in 1791, Mr. Henry was the most powerful and influential member of the Virginia legislature. As a result, some “devoutly prayed for Mr. Henry's death,” especially when he used formidable oratorical prowess in opposition. Despite these political differences, he was held in very high regard personally. Mr. Henry’s first biographer wrote in 1817 that “no man ever passed through so long a life of public service with a reputation more perfectly unspotted.”
4. He was a fierce defender of religious liberty
Many Americans remember Mr. Henry as a steadfast proponent of American Independence, but there was another essential freedom that guided him throughout his life — religious liberty. A very pious Christian himself, lawyer Henry defended numerous itinerant Baptist preachers pro bono, securing their releases from jail, and anonymously paying their court and jail costs.
5. He was an early decrier of the crown, accused of treason on multiple occasions.
As a freshman Burgess in 1765, he elicited cries of “Treason!” after introducing a number of resolutions against the Stamp Act. Thomas Jefferson later wrote that Henry's resolves “set the impetus to the ball of revolution.” The first time the shout of treason was hurled at Mr. Henry came in December of 1763 during the Parson's Cause, when he dared to suggest that the King had degenerated into a Tyrant, and “thus forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience.” Happily, no charges were brought on either occasion.
6. It is probable that Mr. Henry was the first attorney in American legal history to employ the insanity defense.
The exact phrase, used in 1774, was “a moment of temporary impassioned insanity.” He was successful, as the charge of willful murder was reduced to manslaughter, and thus his client (Henry Bullard) avoided the gallows. Many claim that the first application was in 1843 England, almost seven decades after the Bullard case.
7. The man could really talk.
After the War for Independence, Mr. Henry was vigorously opposed to a Federal (centralized) form of government. Though nominated to represent Virginia in the Philadelphia Convention, he declined, saving his strength for the Ratifying Convention in Richmond, June 1788. Of the 23 days the Richmond Convention was sitting, Mr. Henry spoke at length for 18 of those days. In fact, the written record shows that he spoke for a quarter of the entire time that the 168-member assembly was gathered.
