The Sages and Heroes of the American Revolution

by L. Carroll Judson

Thus it was with Patrick Henry born at Studley, Hanover County, Virginia, on the 29th of May 1736. His father was a highly reputable man of Scotch descent—his mother was the sister of Judge Winston who was justly celebrated as an eloquent speaker. During his childhood and youth Patrick was remarkable for indolence and a love of recreation. He arrived at manhood with a limited education and ignorant of all occupations. His mind was not cultivated, his native talents were not developed, his genius was not awakened until after he was a husband and a father. His friends vainly endeavored to put him on a course of application to business by setting him up in the mercantile line. Preferring his fishing rod and gun to measuring tape he soon failed. Finding himself bankrupt he concluded that the increasing troubles of his pilgrimage were too numerous to bear alone. He married the daughter of a respectable planter and became a tiller of the ground. Unacquainted with this new vocation he soon swamped in the quagmire of adversity. He then gibed, put his helm hard up and tacked to the mercantile business. Still he was unfortunate. Poverty claimed him as a favorite son and bestowed upon him special attention. An increasing family needed increased means of support. Creditors had the assurance to shower duns upon him and cruelly reduced him to misery and want. He then conceived the idea of studying law. For the first time he felt most keenly the waste of time in his childhood and youth. He saw many of his age who had ascended high on the ladder of fame whose native powers of mind he knew to be inferior to his. He bent his whole energies to study and in six weeks after he commenced was admitted to the Bar, more as a compliment to his respectable connexions and his destitute situation than from the knowledge he had obtained of the abstruse science of law during the brief period he had been engaged in its investigation. Folded in the coils of extreme want for the three ensuing years he made but slight advances in his profession. He obtained the necessaries of life by aiding his father-in-law at a tavern bar instead of being at the Bar of the court. He was still ardently attached to his gun. He often look his knapsack of provisions and remained in the woods several days and nights. On his return he would enter the court in his coarse and blood stained hunting dress—take up his causes—carry them through with astonishing adroitness and finally gained a popular reputation as an advocate.

In 1764 he was employed in a case of contested election tried at Richmond, which introduced him among the fashionable and gay whose dress and manners formed a great contrast with his. He made no preparation to meet his learned and polished adversaries. As he moved awkwardly among them, some, who were squinting at him and his coarse apparel, supposed him non compos mentis. When the case was tried the audience and court were electrified by his torrent of native eloquence and lucid logic. Judges Tyler and Winston who were upon the bench declared they had never before witnessed so happy and powerful an effort in point of sublime rhetoric and conclusive argument. The towering genius of Patrick Henry then burst from embryo into blooming life. From that time his fame spread its expansive wings and soared far above those of gayer plumage but of less strength. A lucrative practice banished want, sunshine friends returned and flashed around him, he leaped upon the flood tide of prosperity. From his childhood he had been a close observer of human nature—the only germ of genius visible in his juvenile character. He had studiously cultivated this important attribute which was of great advantage to him through life. So familiar had he become with the propensities and operations of the mind that he comprehended all its intricacies, impulses and variations. This gave him a great advantage over many of his professional brethren who had studied Greek and Latin more but human nature less than this self-made man. He took a deep and comprehensive view of the causes that impel men to action and of the results produced by the multifarious influences that control them. He grasped the designs of creation, the duty of man to his fellow and his God, the laws of nature, reason and revelation and became a bold advocate for liberty of conscience, equal rights and universal freedom. From the expansive view he had taken of the rights of man, the different forms of government, the oppression of kings, the policy pursued by the mother country towards the American colonies, he was fully convinced that to be great and happy a nation must be free and independent. With the eye of a statesman he had viewed the increasing oppression of the crown. They had reached his noble soul and roused that soul to action. Patrick Henry first charged the revolutionary ball with patriotic fire in Virginia and gave it an impetus that gathered force as it rolled onward.

In 1765 he was elected to the Assembly and at once took a bold decisive stand against British oppression. He introduced resolutions against the Stamp Act that were so pointed and bold as to alarm many of the older members although they admitted the truth and justice of the sentiments expressed. They had not his genius to design or his moral courage to execute. To impart a share of these to them and allay the palpitations of their trembling hearts was the province of this young champion of freedom. In this he succeeded—his resolutions were passed. Each was drawn from the translucent fountain of eternal justice—based upon equity and law and within the orbit of Magna Charta that had been the polar star of the English government ever since the 19th of June 1215. Read them and judge.

"Resolved—That the first adventurers and settlers of this his majesty's colony and dominion brought with them and transmitted to their posterity and all other his majesty's subjects since inhabiting in this his majesty's said colony—all the privileges, franchises and immunities that have at any time been held, enjoyed and possessed by the people of Great Britain.

"Resolved—That by two royal charters granted by King James I. the colonies aforesaid are declared entitled to all the privileges, liberties and immunities of denizens and natural born subjects to all intents and purposes as if they had been born and abiding within the realm of England.

"Resolved—That the taxation of the people by themselves or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear and the easiest mode of raising them and are equally affected by such taxes themselves, is the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom and without which the ancient constitution cannot subsist.

"Resolved—That his majesty's liege people of this most ancient colony have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus governed by their own Assembly in the article of their taxes and internal police and that the same hath never been forfeited or in any other way given up but hath been constantly recognized by the king's people of Great Britain.

"Resolved therefore—That the General Assembly of this colony has the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony and that any attempt to vest such power in any person or persons whosoever other than the General Assembly aforesaid has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom."

The cringing sycophants of a corrupt and corrupting ministry could not—dare not deny the correctness of these resolutions. They were hailed by every patriot as the firm pillars of American liberty. They were based upon the well defined principles of the English constitution and confined within the limits of the ancient landmarks of that sacred instrument. They were enforced by the overwhelming eloquence and logic of Mr. Henry and seconded by the cool deep calculating Johnson, who sustained them by arguments and conclusions that carried conviction and conversion to the minds of many who were poising on the agonizing pivot of hesitation a few moments before. Some members opposed them who subsequently espoused the cause of equal rights with great vigor. This opposition brought out in fuller, richer foliage the genius of the mover. He stood among the great in all the sublimity of his towering intellect the acknowledged champion of that legislative hall which he had but recently entered. Astonishment and delight held his electrified audience captive as he painted the increasing infringements of the hirelings of the crown in bold and glowing colors. He presented in perspective the torrents of blood and seas of trouble through which the colonists had waded to plant themselves in the new world. With his paralyzing finger he pointed to the chains forged by tyranny already clanking upon every ear with a terrific sound. To be free or slaves was the momentous question. He was prepared and determined to unfold the banner of Liberty—drive from his native soil the task-masters of mother Britain or perish in the attempt. His opponents were astounded and found it impossible to stem the mighty current of popular feeling put in motion by the gigantic powers of this bold advocate of right. The resolutions passed amidst cries of treason from the tories—Liberty or death from the patriots. The seeds of freedom were deeply planted on that day and Old Virginia proved a congenial soil for their growth. From that time Patrick Henry was hailed as one of the great advocates of human rights and rational liberty. He stood on the loftiest pinnacle of fame, unmoved and unscathed by the fire of persecution calmly surveying the raging elements of the revolutionary storm in boiling commotion around him.

In August 1774 a Convention met at Williamsburg and passed a series of resolutions pledging support to the eastern Colonies in the common cause against the common enemy. Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton and Patrick Henry were appointed delegates to the general Congress. On the 4th of September this august assembly of patriotic sages met in Carpenter's Hall at the city of Philadelphia. The object for which they had met was one of imposing and thrilling interest, big with events, absorbing in character and vast in importance. The eyes of gazing millions were turned upon them—the burning wrath of the king was flashing before them—the anathema of the ministers was pronounced against them. But they still resolved to go on. The hallowed cause of freedom impelled them to action. After an address to the God of Hosts imploring his guidance the proceedings opened by appointing Peyton Randolph of Virginia President. A deep and solemn silence ensued. Each member seemed to appeal to Heaven for aid and direction. At length Patrick Henry rose in all the majesty of his greatness. Echo lingered to catch a sound. Like a colossal statue there he stood and surveyed the master spirits around him—his countenance solemn as eternity. O, my God! what a moment of agonizing suspense! His lips opened—his stentorian voice broke the painful silence—respiration regained its freedom—the hall was illuminated with patriotic fire. With the eloquence of Demosthenes, the philosophy of Socrates, the justice of Aristides and the patriotism of Cincinnatus he took a bold, broad, impartial and comprehensive view of the past, present and future—held up to the light the relations between the mother country and the Colonies—unveiled the dark designs of the corrupt unprincipled ministry—exposed their unholy claims to wield an iron sceptre over America—demonstrated clearly that their ulterior object was the slavery of the people and extortion of money and painted a nation's rights and a nation's wrongs in flaming colors of lurid brightness. The dignity and calmness of his manner, the clearness of his logic, the force of his arguments, the power of his eloquence, the solemnity of his countenance and voice—combined to inspire an awe and deep toned feeling until then unknown to the astonished audience. His elevation of thought seemed supernatural and purified by divinity. He seemed commissioned by the great Jehovah to rouse his countrymen to a sense of impending danger. He sat down amidst repeated bursts of applause the acknowledged Demosthenes of the new world—the most powerful orator of America.