At the time when Wirt wrote this rhapsody, he was unable, as he tells us, to procure from any quarter a rational account of the line of argument taken by Patrick Henry, or even of any other than a single topic alluded to by him in the course of his speech,—they who heard the speech saying “that when it was over, they felt as if they had just awaked from some ecstatic dream, of which they were unable to recall or connect the particulars.”[55]
There was present in that assemblage, however, at least one person who listened to the young orator without falling into an ecstatic dream, and whose senses were so well preserved to him through it all that he was able, a few days afterward, while the whole occasion was fresh in his memory, to place upon record a clear and connected version of the wonder-working speech. This version is to be found in a letter written by the plaintiff on the 12th of December, 1763, and has been brought to light only within recent years.
After giving, for the benefit of the learned counsel by whom the cause was to be managed, on appeal, in the general court, a lucid and rather critical account of the whole proceeding, Maury adds:—
“One occurrence more, though not essential to the [Pg 53] cause, I can’t help mentioning.… Mr. Henry, mentioned above (who had been called in by the defendants, as we suspected, to do what I some time ago told you of), after Mr. Lyons had opened the cause, rose and harangued the jury for near an hour. This harangue turned upon points as much out of his own depth, and that of the jury, as they were foreign from the purpose,—which it would be impertinent to mention here. However, after he had discussed those points, he labored to prove ‘that the Act of 1758 had every characteristic of a good law; that it was a law of general utility, and could not, consistently with what he called the original compact between the king and people … be annulled.’ Hence he inferred, ‘that a king, by disallowing acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects’ obedience.’ He further urged ‘that the only use of an established church and clergy in society, is to enforce obedience to civil sanctions, and the observance of those which are called duties of imperfect obligation; that when a clergy ceases to answer these ends, the community have no further need of their ministry, and may justly strip them of their appointments; that the clergy of Virginia, in this particular instance of their refusing to acquiesce in the law in question, had been so far from answering, that they had most notoriously counteracted, those great ends of their institution; that, therefore, instead of useful members of the state, they ought to be considered as enemies of the community; and that, in the case now before them, Mr. Maury, instead of countenance, and protection, and damages, very justly deserved to be punished with signal severity.’ And then he perorates to the following [Pg 54] purpose, ‘that excepting they (the jury) were disposed to rivet the chains of bondage on their own necks, he hoped they would not let slip the opportunity which now offered, of making such an example of him as might, hereafter, be a warning to himself and his brethren, not to have the temerity, for the future, to dispute the validity of such laws, authenticated by the only authority which, in his conception, could give force to laws for the government of this colony,—the authority of a legal representative of a council, and of a kind and benevolent and patriot governor.’ You’ll observe I do not pretend to remember his words, but take this to have been the sum and substance of this part of his labored oration. When he came to that part of it where he undertook to assert ‘that a king, by annulling or disallowing acts of so salutary a nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects’ obedience,’ the more sober part of the audience were struck with horror. Mr. Lyons called out aloud, and with an honest warmth, to the Bench, ‘that the gentleman had spoken treason,’ and expressed his astonishment, ‘that their worships could hear it without emotion, or any mark of dissatisfaction.’ At the same instant, too, amongst some gentlemen in the crowd behind me, was a confused murmur of ‘treason, treason!’ Yet Mr. Henry went on in the same treasonable and licentious strain, without interruption from the Bench, nay, even without receiving the least exterior notice of their disapprobation. One of the jury, too, was so highly pleased with these doctrines, that, as I was afterwards told, he every now and then gave the traitorous declaimer a nod of approbation. After the court was adjourned, he apologized to me for what he [Pg 55] had said, alleging that his sole view in engaging in the cause, and in saying what he had, was to render himself popular. You see, then, it is so clear a point in this person’s opinion that the ready road to popularity here is to trample under foot the interests of religion, the rights of the church, and the prerogatives of the crown.”[56]
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Perry, Hist. Coll. i. 12.
[34] Perry, Hist. Coll. 316, 317.
[35] Hening, Statutes at Large, vi. 88, 89.
[36] Ibid. vi. 568, 569.
[37] Perry, Hist. Coll. i. 508, 509.