“‘Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone: it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable. And let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!
“‘It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? 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!’”
Of this tremendous speech there are in existence two traditional descriptions, neither of which is inconsistent with the testimony given by St. George Tucker. He, as a lawyer and a judge, seems to have retained the impression of that portion of the speech which was the more argumentative and unimpassioned: the two other reporters seem to have remembered especially its later and more emotional [Pg 146] passages. Our first traditional description was obtained by Henry Stephens Randall from a clergyman, who had it from an aged friend, also a clergyman, who heard the speech itself:—
“Henry rose with an unearthly fire burning in his eye. He commenced somewhat calmly, but the smothered excitement began more and more to play upon his features and thrill in the tones of his voice. The tendons of his neck stood out white and rigid like whip-cords. His voice rose louder and louder, until the walls of the building, and all within them, seemed to shake and rock in its tremendous vibrations. Finally, his pale face and glaring eye became terrible to look upon. Men leaned forward in their seats, with their heads strained forward, their faces pale, and their eyes glaring like the speaker’s. His last exclamation, ‘Give me liberty, or give me death!’ was like the shout of the leader which turns back the rout of battle. The old man from whom this tradition was derived added that, ‘when the orator sat down, he himself felt sick with excitement. Every eye yet gazed entranced on Henry. It seemed as if a word from him would have led to any wild explosion of violence. Men looked beside themselves.’”[157]
The second traditional description of the speech is here given from a manuscript[158] of Edward Fontaine, who obtained it in 1834 from John Roane, who himself heard the speech. Roane told Fontaine that the orator’s “voice, countenance, and gestures gave an irresistible force to his words,[Pg 147] which no description could make intelligible to one who had never seen him, nor heard him speak;” but, in order to convey some notion of the orator’s manner, Roane described the delivery of the closing sentences of the speech:—
“You remember, sir, the conclusion of the speech, so often declaimed in various ways by school-boys,—‘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!’ He gave each of these words a meaning which is not conveyed by the reading or delivery of them in the ordinary way. When he said, ‘Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?’ he stood in the attitude of a condemned galley slave, loaded with fetters, awaiting his doom. His form was bowed; his wrists were crossed; his manacles were almost visible as he stood like an embodiment of helplessness and agony. After a solemn pause, he raised his eyes and chained hands towards heaven, and prayed, in words and tones which thrilled every heart, ‘Forbid it, Almighty God!’ He then turned towards the timid loyalists of the House, who were quaking with terror at the idea of the consequences of participating in proceedings which would be visited with the penalties of treason by the British crown; and he slowly bent his form yet nearer to the earth, and said, ‘I know not what course others may take,’ and he accompanied the words with his hands still crossed, while he seemed to be weighed down with additional chains. The man appeared transformed into an oppressed, heart-broken, and hopeless felon. After remaining [Pg 148] in this posture of humiliation long enough to impress the imagination with the condition of the colony under the iron heel of military despotism, he arose proudly, and exclaimed, ‘but as for me,’—and the words hissed through his clenched teeth, while his body was thrown back, and every muscle and tendon was strained against the fetters which bound him, and, with his countenance distorted by agony and rage, he looked for a moment like Laocoön in a death struggle with coiling serpents; then the loud, clear, triumphant notes, ‘Give me liberty,’ electrified the assembly. It was not a prayer, but a stern demand, which would submit to no refusal or delay. The sound of his voice, as he spoke these memorable words, was like that of a Spartan pæan on the field of Platæa; and, as each syllable of the word ‘liberty’ echoed through the building, his fetters were shivered; his arms were hurled apart; and the links of his chains were scattered to the winds. When he spoke the word ‘liberty’ with an emphasis never given it before, his hands were open, and his arms elevated and extended; his countenance was radiant; he stood erect and defiant; while the sound of his voice and the sublimity of his attitude made him appear a magnificent incarnation of Freedom, and expressed all that can be acquired or enjoyed by nations and individuals invincible and free. After a momentary pause, only long enough to permit the echo of the word ‘liberty’ to cease, he let his left hand fall powerless to his side, and clenched his right hand firmly, as if holding a dagger with the point aimed at his breast. He stood like a Roman senator defying Cæsar, while the unconquerable spirit of Cato of Utica flashed from every feature; and he closed the grand appeal with the solemn words, ‘or give me death!’ which [Pg 149] sounded with the awful cadence of a hero’s dirge, fearless of death, and victorious in death; and he suited the action to the word by a blow upon the left breast with the right hand, which seemed to drive the dagger to the patriot’s heart.”[159]
Before passing from this celebrated speech, it is proper to say something respecting the authenticity of the version of it which has come down to us, and which is now so universally known in America. The speech is given in these pages substantially as it was given by Wirt in his “Life of Henry.” Wirt himself does not mention whence he obtained his version; and all efforts to discover that version as a whole, in any writing prior to Wirt’s book, have thus far been unsuccessful. These facts have led even so genial a critic as Grigsby to incline to the opinion that “much of the speech published by Wirt is apocryphal.”[160] It would, indeed, be an odd thing, and a source of no little disturbance to many minds, if such should turn out to be the case, and if we should have to conclude that an apocryphal speech written by Wirt, and attributed by him to Patrick Henry fifteen years after the great orator’s death, had done more to perpetuate the renown of Patrick Henry’s oratory than had been done by any and all the words actually spoken by the orator himself during his lifetime. On the other hand, it should be said that Grigsby himself admits that “the outline of the argument” and “some of its [Pg 150] expressions” are undoubtedly “authentic.” That this is so is apparent, likewise, from the written recollections of St. George Tucker, wherein the substance of the speech is given, besides one entire passage in almost the exact language of the version by Wirt. Finally, John Roane, in 1834, in his conversation with Edward Fontaine, is said to have “verified the correctness of the speech as it was written by Judge Tyler for Mr. Wirt.”[161] This, unfortunately, is the only intimation that has anywhere been found attributing Wirt’s version to the excellent authority of Judge John Tyler. If the statement could be confirmed, it would dispel every difficulty at once. But, even though the statement should be set aside, enough would still remain to justify us in thinking that Wirt’s version of the famous speech by no means deserves to be called “apocryphal,” in any such sense as that word has when applied, for example, to the speeches in Livy and in Thucydides, or in Botta. In the first place, Wirt’s version certainly gives the substance of the speech as actually made by Patrick Henry on the occasion named; and, for the form of it, Wirt seems to have gathered testimony from all available living witnesses, and then, from such sentences or snatches of sentences as these witnesses could remember, as well as from his own conception of the orator’s method of expression, to have constructed the version which he has handed down to us. Even in that case, it is [Pg 151] probably far more accurate and authentic than are most of the famous speeches attributed to public characters before reporters’ galleries were opened, and before the art of reporting was brought to its present perfection.
Returning, now, from this long account of Patrick Henry’s most celebrated speech, to the assemblage in which it was made, it remains to be mentioned that the resolutions, as offered by Patrick Henry, were carried; and that the committee, called for by those resolutions, to prepare a plan for “embodying, arming, and disciplining” the militia,[162] was at once appointed. Of this committee Patrick Henry was chairman; and with him were associated Richard Henry Lee, Nicholas, Harrison, Riddick, Washington, Stephen, Lewis, Christian, Pendleton, Jefferson, and Zane. On the following day, Friday, the 24th of March, the committee brought in its report, which was laid over for one day, and then, after some amendment, was unanimously adopted.
The convention did not close its labors until Monday, the 27th of March. The contemporaneous estimate of Patrick Henry, not merely as a leader in debate, but as a constitutional lawyer, and as a man of affairs, may be partly gathered from the fact of his connection with each of the two other important committees of this convention,—the committee “to inquire whether his majesty may of right advance the terms of granting lands [Pg 152] in this colony,”[163] on which his associates were the great lawyers, Bland, Jefferson, Nicholas, and Pendleton; and the committee “to prepare a plan for the encouragement of arts and manufactures in this colony,”[164] on which his associates were Nicholas, Bland, Mercer, Pendleton, Cary, Carter of Stafford, Harrison, Richard Henry Lee, Clapham, Washington, Holt, and Newton.