“If I don’t err in conjecture,” says Carter, “I can’t help thinking that the head of our Commonwealth has as great a palace of fear and apprehension as can possess the heart of any being; and if we compare rumor with actual movements, I believe it will prove itself to every sensible man. As soon as the Congress sent for our first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth regiments to assist you in contest against the enemy where they really were … there got a report among the soldiery that Dignity had declared it would not reside in Williamsburg without two thousand men under arms to guard him. This had like to have occasioned a mutiny. A desertion of many from the several companies did follow; boisterous fellows resisting, and swearing they would not leave their [Pg 223] county.… What a finesse of popularity was this?… As soon as the regiments were gone, this great man found an interest with the council of state, perhaps timorous as himself, to issue orders for the militia of twenty-six counties, and five companies of a minute battalion, to march to Williamsburg, to protect him only against his own fears; and to make this the more popular, it was endeavored that the House of Delegates should give it a countenance, but, as good luck would have it, it was with difficulty refused.[266] … Immediately then, … a bill is brought in to remove the seat of government,—some say, up to Hanover, to be called Henry-Town.”[267]
This gossip of a disappointed Virginian aristocrat, in vituperation of the public character of Governor Henry, naturally leads us forward in our story to that more stupendous eruption of gossip which relates, in the first instance, to the latter part of December, 1776, and which alleges that a conspiracy was then formed among certain members of the General Assembly to make Patrick Henry the dictator of Virginia. The first intimation ever given to the public concerning it, was given by Jefferson several years afterward, in his “Notes on Virginia,” a fascinating brochure which was written by him in 1781 and 1782, was first printed privately in Paris in 1784, and was first published in England in 1787, in America in 1788.[268] The essential portions of his statement are as follows:—[Pg 224]
“In December, 1776, our circumstances being much distressed, it was proposed in the House of Delegates to create a dictator, invested with every power legislative, executive, and judiciary, civil and military, of life and death, over our persons and over our properties.… One who entered into this contest from a pure love of liberty, and a sense of injured rights, who determined to make every sacrifice and to meet every danger, for the reëstablishment of those rights on a firm basis, … must stand confounded and dismayed when he is told that a considerable portion of” the House “had meditated the surrender of them into a single hand, and in lieu of a limited monarchy, to deliver him over to a despotic one.… The very thought alone was treason against the people; was treason against man in general; as riveting forever the chains which bow down their necks, by giving to their oppressors a proof, which they would have trumpeted through the universe, of the imbecility of republican government, in times of pressing danger, to shield them from harm.… Those who meant well, of the advocates of this measure (and most of them meant well, for I know them personally, had been their fellow-laborer in the common cause, and had often proved the purity of their principles), had been seduced in their judgment by the example of an ancient republic, whose constitution and circumstances were fundamentally different.”[269]
With that artistic tact and that excellent prudence which seem never to have failed Jefferson in any of his enterprises for the disparagement of his [Pg 225] associates, he here avoids, as will be observed, all mention of the name of the person for whose fatal promotion this classic conspiracy was formed,—leaving that interesting item to come out, as it did many years afterward, when the most of those who could have borne testimony upon the subject were in their graves, and when the damning stigma could be comfortably fastened to the name of Patrick Henry without the direct intervention of Jefferson’s own hands. Accordingly, in 1816, a French gentleman, Girardin, a near neighbor of Jefferson’s, who enjoyed “the incalculable benefit of a free access to Mr. Jefferson’s library,”[270] and who wrote the continuation of Burk’s “History of Virginia” under Jefferson’s very eye,[271] gave in that work a highly wrought account of the alleged conspiracy of December, 1776, as involving “nothing less than the substitution of a despotic in lieu of a limited monarch;” and then proceeded to bring the accusation down from those lurid generalities of condemnation in which Jefferson himself had cautiously left it, by adding this sentence: “That Mr. Henry was the person in view for the dictatorship, is well ascertained.”[272]
Finally, in 1817, William Wirt, whose “Life of Henry” was likewise composed under nearly the same inestimable advantages as regards instruction [Pg 226] and oversight furnished by Jefferson, repeated the fearful tale, and added some particulars; but, in doing so, Wirt could not fail—good lawyer and just man, as he was—to direct attention to the absence of all evidence of any collusion on the part of Patrick Henry with the projected folly and crime.
“Even the heroism of the Virginia legislature,” says Wirt, “gave way; and, in a season of despair, the mad project of a dictator was seriously meditated. That Mr. Henry was thought of for this office, has been alleged, and is highly probable; but that the project was suggested by him, or even received his countenance, I have met with no one who will venture to affirm. There is a tradition that Colonel Archibald Cary, the speaker of the Senate, was principally instrumental in crushing this project; that meeting Colonel Syme, the step-brother of Colonel Henry, in the lobby of the House, he accosted him very fiercely in terms like these: ‘I am told that your brother wishes to be dictator. Tell him from me, that the day of his appointment shall be the day of his death;—for he shall feel my dagger in his heart before the sunset of that day.’ And the tradition adds that Colonel Syme, in great agitation, declared that ‘if such a project existed, his brother had no hand in it; for that nothing could be more foreign to him, than to countenance any office which could endanger, in the most distant manner, the liberties of his country.’ The intrepidity and violence of Colonel Cary’s character renders the tradition probable; but it furnishes no proof of Mr. Henry’s implication in the scheme.”[273]
[Pg 227] A disinterested study of this subject, in the light of all the evidence now attainable, will be likely to convince any one that this enormous scandal must have been very largely a result of the extreme looseness at that time prevailing in the use of the word “dictator,” and of its being employed, on the one side, in an innocent sense, and, on the other side, in a guilty one. In strict propriety, of course, the word designates a magistrate created in an emergency of public peril, and clothed for a time with unlimited power. It is an extreme remedy, and in itself a remedy extremely dangerous, and can never be innocently resorted to except when the necessity for it is indubitable; and it may well be questioned whether, among people and institutions like our own, a necessity can ever arise which would justify the temporary grant of unlimited power to any man. If this be true, it follows that no man among us can, without dire political guilt, ever consent to bestow such power; and that no man can, without the same guilt, ever consent to receive it.
Yet it is plain that even among us, between the years 1776 and 1783, emergencies of terrific public peril did arise, sufficient to justify, nay, even to compel, the bestowment either upon the governor of some State, or upon the general of the armies, not of unlimited power, certainly, but of extraordinary power,—such extraordinary power, for example, as was actually conferred by the Continental Congress, more than once, on Washington;[Pg 228] as was conferred by the legislature of South Carolina on Governor John Rutledge; as was repeatedly conferred by the legislature of Virginia upon Governor Patrick Henry; and afterward, in still higher degree, by the same legislature, on Governor Thomas Jefferson himself. Nevertheless, so loose was the meaning then attached to the word “dictator,” that it was not uncommon for men to speak of these very cases as examples of the bestowment of a dictatorship, and of the exercise of dictatorial power; although, in every one of the cases mentioned, there was lacking the essential feature of a true dictatorship, namely, the grant of unlimited power to one man. It is perfectly obvious, likewise, that when, in those days, men spoke thus of a dictatorship, and of dictatorial power, they attached no suggestion of political guilt either to the persons who bestowed such power, or to the persons who severally accepted it,—the tacit understanding being that, in every instance, the public danger required and justified some grant of extraordinary power; that no more power was granted than was necessary; and that the man to whom, in any case, the grant was made, was a man to whom, there was good reason to believe, the grant could be made with safety. Obviously, it was upon this tacit understanding of its meaning that the word was used, for instance, by Edmund Randolph, in 1788, in the Virginia Constitutional Convention, when, alluding to the extraordinary power bestowed by Congress on Washington, he [Pg 229] said: “We had an American dictator in 1781.” Surely, Randolph did not mean to impute political crime, either to the Congress which made Washington a dictator, or to Washington himself who consented to be made one. It was upon the same tacit understanding, also, that Patrick Henry, in reply to Randolph, took up the word, and extolled the grant of dictatorial power to Washington on the occasion referred to: “In making a dictator,” said Henry, “we followed the example of the most glorious, magnanimous, and skilful nations. In great dangers, this power has been given. Rome has furnished us with an illustrious example. America found a person for that trust: she looked to Virginia for him. We gave a dictatorial power to hands that used it gloriously, and which were rendered more glorious by surrendering it up.”[274]
Thus it is apparent that the word “dictator” was frequently used in those times in a sense perfectly innocent. As all men know, however, the word is one capable of suggesting the possibilities of dreadful political crime; and it is not hard to see how, when employed by one person to describe the bestowment and acceptance of extraordinary power,—implying a perfectly innocent proposition, it could be easily taken by another person as describing the bestowment and acceptance of unlimited power,—implying a proposition which among us, probably, would always be a criminal one.[Pg 230]
With the help which this discussion may give us, let us now return to the General Assembly of Virginia, at Williamsburg, approaching the close of its first session, in the latter part of December, 1776. It was on the point of adjourning, not to meet again until the latter part of March, 1777. At that moment, by the arrival of most alarming news from the seat of war, it was forced to make special provision for the public safety during the interval which must elapse before its next session. Its journal indicates that, prior to the 20th of December, it had been proceeding with its business in a quiet way, under no apparent consciousness of imminent peril. On that day, however, there are traces of a panic; for, on that day, “The Virginia Gazette” announced to them the appalling news of “the crossing of the Delaware by the British forces, from twelve to fifteen thousand strong; the position of General Washington, at Bristol, on the south side of the river, with only six thousand men;” and the virtual flight of Congress from Philadelphia.[275] At this rate, how long would it be before the Continental army would be dispersed or captured, and the troops of the enemy sweeping in vengeance across the borders of Virginia? Accordingly, the House of Delegates immediately resolved itself into “a committee to take into their consideration the state of America;” but not being able to reach any decision that day, it voted to resume the subject on the day following, and for [Pg 231] that purpose to meet an hour earlier than usual. So, on Saturday, the 21st of December, the House passed a series of resolutions intended to provide for the crisis into which the country was plunged, and, among the other resolutions, this:—