The smouldering fires in Henry's blood now burned fiercely. This was the same Pendleton who had fought Henry in his immortal resolution on the Stamp Act in 1765 and in every other of those epochal battles for liberty and human rights which Henry had led and won.[1193] But the Constitutionalists gave the old war horse no chance to charge upon his lifelong opponent. A young man, thirty-two years of age, rose, and, standing within a few feet of the chair, was recognized. Six feet tall, beautiful of face, with the resounding and fearless voice of a warrior, Henry Lee looked the part which reputation assigned him. Descended from one of the oldest and most honorable families in the colony, a graduate of Princeton College, one of the most daring, picturesque, and attractive officers of the Revolution, in which by sheer gallantry and military genius he had become commander of a famous cavalry command, the gallant Lee was a perfect contrast to the venerable Pendleton.[1194]
Lee paid tribute to Henry's shining talents; but, said he, "I trust that he [Henry] is come to judge, and not to alarm." Henry had praised Washington; yet Washington was for the Constitution. What was there wrong with the expression "We, the people," since upon the people "it is to operate, if adopted"? Like every Constitutionalist speaker, Lee painted in somber and forbidding colors the condition of the country, "all owing to the imbecility of the Confederation."[1195]
At last Henry secured the floor. At once he struck the major note of the opposition. "The question turns," said he, "on that poor little thing—the expression, 'We, the people; instead of the states.'" It was an "alarming transition ... a revolution[1196] as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain.... Sovereignty of the states ... rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, ... all pretensions of human rights and privileges" were imperiled if not lost by the change.
It was the "despised" Confederation that had carried us through the war. Think well, he urged, before you part with it. "Revolutions like this have happened in almost every country in Europe." The new Government may prevent "licentiousness," but also "it will oppress and ruin the people," thundered their champion. The Constitution was clear when it spoke of "sedition," but fatally vague when it spoke of "privileges." Where, asked Henry, were the dangers the Constitutionalists conjured up? Purely imaginary! If any arose, he depended on "the American spirit" to defend us.
The method of amendment provided in the Constitution, exclaimed Henry, was a mockery—it shut the door on amendment. "A contemptible minority can prevent the good of the majority." "A standing army" will "execute the execrable commands of tyranny," shouted Henry. And who, he asked, will punish them? "Will your mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment?" If the Constitution is adopted, "it will be because we like a great splendid" government. "The ropes and chains of consolidation" were "about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire." The Constitution's so-called checks and balances, sneered Henry, were "rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ... contrivances."
The Constitutionalists talked of danger if the Confederation was continued; yet, under it, declared Henry, "peace and security, ease and content" were now the real lot of all. Why, then, attempt "to terrify us into an adoption of this new form of government?... Who knows the dangers this new system may produce? They are out of sight of the common people; they cannot foresee latent consequences." It was the operation of the proposed National Government "on the middling and lower classes of people" that Henry feared. "This government" [the Constitution], cried he, "is not a Virginian but an American government."
Throughout Henry's speech, in which he voiced, as he never failed to do, the thought of the masses, a National Government is held up as a foreign power—even one so restricted as the literal words of the Constitution outlined. Had the Constitutionalists acknowledged those Nationalist opinions which, in later years, were to fall from the lips of a young member of the Convention and become the law of the land, the defeat of the Constitution would have been certain, prompt, and overwhelming.
In the Constitution's chief executive, Henry saw "a great and mighty President" with "the powers of a King ... to be supported in extravagant magnificence." The National Government's tax-gatherers would "ruin you with impunity," he warned his fellow members and the people they represented. Did not Virginia's own "state sheriffs, those unfeeling blood-suckers," even "under the watchful eye of our legislature commit the most horrid and barbarous ravages on our people? ... Lands have been sold," asserted he, "for 5 shillings which were worth one hundred pounds." What, then, would happen to the people "if their master had been at Philadelphia or New York?" asked Henry. "These harpies may search at any time your houses and most secret recesses." Its friends talked about the beauty of the Constitution, but to Henry its features were "horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting; it squints toward monarchy."
The President, "your American chief," can make himself absolute, dramatically exclaimed the great orator. "If ever he violates the laws ... he will come at the head of his army to carry everything before him; or he will give bail, or do what Mr. Chief Justice will order him." But will he submit to punishment? Rather, he will "make one bold push for the American throne," prophesied Henry. "We shall have a king; the army will salute him monarch: your militia will leave you, and assist in making him king and fight against you."[1197] It would be infinitely better, he avowed, to have a government like Great Britain with "King, Lords, and Commons, than a government so replete with such insupportable evils" as the Constitution contained.
Henry spoke of the danger of the power of Congress over elections, and the treaty-making power. A majority of the people were against the Constitution, he said, and even "the adopting states have already heart-burnings and animosity and repent their precipitate hurry.... Pennsylvania has been tricked into" ratification. "If other states who have adopted it have not been tricked, still they were too much hurried.[1198] ... I have not said the one hundred thousandth part of what I have on my mind and wish to impart"—with these words of warning to the Constitutionalists, Henry closed by apologizing for the time he had taken. He admitted that he had spoken out of order, but trusted that the Convention would hear him again.[1199]