Resolved, That any person who shall, by speaking or writing, assert or maintain that any person or persons, other than the general assembly of this colony, have any right or power to impose or lay any taxation on the people here, shall be deemed an enemy to his majesty's colony.[16 ]
The first four resolves were straightforward restatements of the remonstrance and Bland's earlier declarations against parliamentary authority. The fifth went beyond control over taxes to exclude all duties, even navigation duties for regulatory purposes. The sixth and seventh were "pure Patrick Henry", reminiscent of his statements before the Hanover jury in the Parsons' Cause, probably treasonous, certainly incendiary and revolutionary.
Discussion lasted all through the 29th with the opposition led by Richard Bland, George Wythe, Peyton Randolph, Speaker Robinson, and Benjamin Harrison contending that the time was inappropriate for more resolutions. Both house and council were already on record against the Stamp Act which no Virginian wanted. More resolutions were unnecessary, especially resolutions which were as inflammatory as these. Sometime during these debates the sixth and seventh resolves were eliminated. Probably the next day, May 30th, the first four resolves passed by votes of 22-17 with little real objection to the substance only to the wisdom of more resolutions.
The fifth resolution was another story. The stumbling block was the phrase "only and sole exclusive Right and Power to lay Taxes". Jefferson called the debate "most bloody". Henry, in his will, called them "violent Debates. Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast on me...." Some time during the debates, observers agree, Henry exclaimed the theme of his immortal phrase:
Tarquin and Caesar had each his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third—'Treason' proclaimed Speaker Robinson—may profit by their Example. If this be Treason, Make the most of it.
His speech may have been embellished by time. There can be no denying, however, what Jefferson 40 years later remembered. "Torrents of sublime eloquence from Mr. Henry, backed by the solid reasoning of Johnson, prevailed."
The fifth measure carried by one vote, 20-19, causing Peyton Randolph to mutter as he pushed through the door past Jefferson, "by God, I would have given 500 guineas for a single vote."[17 ]
How had these two men, Henry and Johnston brought it off. One was 29, the other 65; one was a first-time burgess, the other a veteran member. (Henry was not as unknown as popular myth would have it. He had been in Williamsburg during the debates over the remonstrance and had represented a client in an election fraud case before the house.) First, they had benefited from the departure of two-thirds of the burgesses; second, there was the frustration over parliament's outright refusal to even read the remonstrance; third, there was the formation, probably by Johnston, of a coalition of the younger generation of planter-gentry living in the Piedmont, the ambitious backcountry burgesses, and the Northern Neck faction led by Francis Lighfoot Lee of Loudoun and Thomas Ludwell Lee of Stafford; fourth, there was Henry himself, of whom Jefferson at a time when he had come to dislike Henry, still could say "he was the best humoured man in society I almost ever knew, and the greatest orator that ever lived. He had a consummate knowledge of the human heart, which directing the efforts of his eloquence enabled him to attain a degree of popularity with the people at large never perhaps equalled."[18 ]
With the five resolves passed, Henry departed Williamsburg. Enough Tidewater votes were corralled by Robinson and Councilor Peter Randolph the following day, the 31st, to rescind and expunge from the record the fifth resolve. Much to the chagrin of Fauquier, no attempt was made to remove the first four.
As with the sixth and seventh resolves, this last-ditch effort made no difference. The public printer, conservative Joseph Royle of the Virginia Gazette, refused to publish the resolves at all. What went into print outside the colonies were the four true resolves, plus the three spurious ones, often made more radical in tone as they were reprinted. The effect was electric. If this was the expression of the Virginia House of Burgesses, long thought to be the most reasoned in its approach to constitutional issues, then a new day had arrived. No wonder patriots in Philadelphia, Newport, New York, and Boston shouted with joy when they read them and responded with equally vigorous statements, although all stopped short of the direct words of the sixth and seventh resolves. Massachusetts, which for once had lagged behind, called for a Stamp Act Congress to meet in New York in October. Virginia did not attend, for Governor Fauquier would not call the assembly into session to elect representatives. Virginians did not need to be there. Everyone knew where they stood. The Stamp Act Congress quickly picked up the spirit, although not the strident language of the Henry Resolves, and declared all taxes, internal and external, should be repealed.