American Minute - Mar. 23 - Give me liberty or... - Patrick Henry

American Minute
with
Bill Federer

Britain imposed the 1764 Currency Act, 1764 Sugar Act, 1765 Stamp Act, 1765 Quartering Act, 1766 Declaratory Act, 1767 Townshend Act, 1773 Tea Act, 1774 Boston Port Act, 1774 Justice Act, 1774 Massachusetts Government Act, 1774 Quartering Act, 1774 Quebec Act, and 1775 Proclamation of Rebellion.

On MARCH 23, 1775, Patrick Henry spoke to the 2nd Virginia Convention, which was meeting in Richmond's St. John's Church due to British hostilities:

"I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery...

We have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated...We have prostrated ourselves before the throne...

Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence."

Patrick Henry continued:

"There is a just God who presides over the destines of nations...who will raise up friends to fight our battle for us.

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave...

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."

Give Me Liberty or Give me Death

Hat Tip to my friend Wyatt @ wyattmcintyre

It would be Patrick Henry's
defining speech.

There would be no partisan rhetoric, no attacks on the character of his opponents, no condemnation of those who disagreed with him. Instead, he would take the floor of St. John's Church in Richmond that March day of 1775 and rising to address the now exiled House of Burgess, disbanded not that long before and forced into hiding by the colonial Governor, Lord Dunmore, he would, in a patient plea for action, lay out the road to revolution from grevious moves by the Imperial Government, to the petitions to King George the Third to the blight of their brethren in Massachusetts Colony. Interwoven would be the Bible, prophetic images and references taken from Shakespeare, given in the unique style that only, it would seem, Patrick Henry could speak in. In ten minutes, he lay to rest months of debate, the House rising to arms.

Virginia would send troops a short time later.

There is no original transcript of the speech given March 23rd, 1775 by the man who would become Governor of the State of Virginia, who would later speech passionately of the need for a Bill of Rights and would oppose the Constitution on the same grounds. The first actual written account of the text of the speech would appear two generations later in William Wirt's "Life and Character of Patrick Henry", published in 1817. The truth is that Henry's hypnotic speaking style would often seem to almost entrance his listeners, Thomas Jefferson, one of the men present at St. John's, once remarking he would always be engrossed and excited by a speech by his compatriot and yet that, if asked later to recount it, he would be unable to do so.

Yet here... Here would be a battle cry of the Revolution and for a nation generations after he had faded from this earth... "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"