[250 years
ago this past Saturday, Patrick Henry delivered his “Give me liberty or
give me death!” speech to the
Virginia Assembly. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy that and four other
patriotic speeches!]
For the
anniversary of Henry’s speech, I wanted to share my three paragraphs on it at
the start of Chapter 1 of Of
Thee I Sing:
On March 23rd,
1775, a 38-year old attorney, planter, and delegate to the Vir[1]ginia
House of Burgesses named Patrick Henry (1736–1799) rose to give a speech at the
Second Virginia Convention. That convention, held from March 20th–23rd
at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond in order to maintain distance from
the colony’s royal Governor Dunmore and his administration in Williamsburg, was
the second in a series of meetings of delegates and other civic leaders to
debate the question of independence for Virginia and the colonies. Henry had
proposed that the colonists raise a militia that would exist separate from the
English army and government, and some of the convention’s more moderate
attendees had spoken out against that proposal as too belligerent and likely to
increase the chances of war.
Henry’s speech
became famous, and a rallying cry for the incipient revolution, due to his
closing line: “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me
liberty or give me death!” But what’s particularly striking about the speech is
that Henry frames his revolutionary sentiments through an initial lens not of liberty
but of patriotism. He opens by making his disagreement with his fellow
delegates about precisely that topic, his vision of patriotism in response to
theirs: “No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as
abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But
different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I
hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining
as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth
my sentiments freely, and without reserve.”
Moreover, Henry
makes clear that he sees his responsibility to offer such sentiments as itself
an expression and exemplification of patriotism. “Should I keep back my
opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence,” he admits, “I should
consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country.” Given that Virginia
(like all the colonies) was still part of England at this time, and Henry thus
a subject of King George like every other Virginian, he here reframes the
interconnected concepts of patriotism and treason in a particularly bold and
crucial way. That is, while he goes on to argue that freedom is “the glorious
object of our contest,” he frames the battle to attain that freedom, “the noble
struggle in which we have been so long engaged” and of which his own speech
becomes a part, not just as an opposition to one nation, but also and
especially as a patriotic embrace of another, new nation.
Next SpeechStudying
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Speeches you’d highlight?
