"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third - ["Treason!" cried the Speaker] - may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." – Patrick Henry, Speech on the Stamp Act in the Virginia House of Burgesses, May 30, 1765
As I indicated in a post from a year and a half ago, it took a comparatively long time—into his late twenties, actually—before Patrick Henry (1736-1799) began to find his way in life, as a foe of entrenched privilege, in “The Parsons’ Cause,” a case involving public funding for Anglican ministers—and one of the significant early milestones in the American separation of church and state. In a sense, he found his way by finding his voice, in an address to the jury that won Henry a reputation for eloquence.
Now look at the above quote—perhaps the orator’s most famous, after “Give me liberty or give me death.” Posterity has given him a reputation as one of the firebrands of the period leading up to the American Revolution, but there’s another quality that strikes me in this: a sense of cool improvisation.
Interruptions in the middle of a speech can catch almost anyone off-guard, especially a new legislator who had only taken his seat nine days before, as was the case here.
But Henry was not only unruffled by the outburst from the Speaker of the House of Burgesses, but delivered an almost astonishing comeback line. He was used to thinking on his feet, able to spin a web of words from the sketchiest of notes, as he had done the day before—245 years ago today—when he took seven resolutions scrawled on the blank leaf of a law book and put them before the House of Burgesses.
Perhaps King George III, his ministers, and Parliament thought that their subjects would grumble about the Stamp Act, which required the colonists to pay a tax on every piece of paper they used. Henry’s Stamp Act Resolves, however, introduced a mere two months after the legislation passed (remember that, in those days, it took far longer for news to travel across the ocean), put them on notice that they were profoundly mistaken, and had now stirred up a hornet’s nest.
Nowadays, Henry’s speech has taken on additional historical interest, for a reason many would not have dreamed of years ago: the question of how he expressed his controversial thoughts, and if he even backed away from it.
There were, of course, no electronic devices to record verbatim what speakers said. Moreover, as I indicated above, Henry tended to talk extemporaneously. Even his “Give me liberty or give me death” address was a reconstruction by an early biographer, William Wirt.
A more recent biographer, University of Pennsylvania historian Richard Beeman, has sifted through the available documentary records about “If this be treason” and, intriguingly, found one contemporary eyewitness who claimed that, almost immediately after blurting out his statement, Henry hastened to assure the House that he remained a loyal subject of the crown. Doing so, I would suspect, would predispose this group of conservative aristocrats to look more kindly on resolutions that, after all, were rooted in established British rights, such as the right to be taxed by one’s representatives.
Beeman’s biography has been well-received and his research sounds extensively painstaking. On the other hand, there are other reasons to suppose that the traditional account of Henry’s words might not be not that far off the mark.
1) In his summation in the Parsons’ Cause case, Henry had already called into question the moral authority of the King and his ministers to force the Virginia colonists to fund Anglican ministers: “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.” Would he have muted his opposition to a measure even more egregious?
2) Henry might not have cared that much for putting conservatives into the right frame of mind to listen to his arguments. He introduced his resolutions, after all, when many were away from Williamsburg. All he needed was 24% of members to reach a quorum. The group ended up passing four of the seven resolutions he introduced.
3) Another eyewitness retained a vivid memory of what he heard. Thomas Jefferson, then a 22-year-old student at William and Mary College, happened to be standing in the doorway of the House of Burgesses during Henry’s electrifying address. Years later, political differences would convert Henry and Jefferson from allies into foes.
But even after this point had been reached, Jefferson still remembered Henry’s opposition as blunt and full-throated. "I well remember the cry of treason," Jefferson wrote afterward, "the pause of Mr. Henry at the name of George III, and the presence of mind with which he closed his sentence, and baffled the charge vociferated."
Years later, Jefferson would have had every reason to deprecate Henry’s utterance, if he could have done so. He didn’t, suggesting that knowledge of it was so well-known that to dispute its impact would have been laughable.
Ten years before the outbreak of the American Revolution, Patrick Henry had let the British government know, in no uncertain terms, that opposition to its meddling in colonial affairs would not be confined to Massachusetts. Ten years before Lexington, he had fired his own rhetorical shot heard 'round the world.
As I indicated in a post from a year and a half ago, it took a comparatively long time—into his late twenties, actually—before Patrick Henry (1736-1799) began to find his way in life, as a foe of entrenched privilege, in “The Parsons’ Cause,” a case involving public funding for Anglican ministers—and one of the significant early milestones in the American separation of church and state. In a sense, he found his way by finding his voice, in an address to the jury that won Henry a reputation for eloquence.
Now look at the above quote—perhaps the orator’s most famous, after “Give me liberty or give me death.” Posterity has given him a reputation as one of the firebrands of the period leading up to the American Revolution, but there’s another quality that strikes me in this: a sense of cool improvisation.
Interruptions in the middle of a speech can catch almost anyone off-guard, especially a new legislator who had only taken his seat nine days before, as was the case here.
But Henry was not only unruffled by the outburst from the Speaker of the House of Burgesses, but delivered an almost astonishing comeback line. He was used to thinking on his feet, able to spin a web of words from the sketchiest of notes, as he had done the day before—245 years ago today—when he took seven resolutions scrawled on the blank leaf of a law book and put them before the House of Burgesses.
Perhaps King George III, his ministers, and Parliament thought that their subjects would grumble about the Stamp Act, which required the colonists to pay a tax on every piece of paper they used. Henry’s Stamp Act Resolves, however, introduced a mere two months after the legislation passed (remember that, in those days, it took far longer for news to travel across the ocean), put them on notice that they were profoundly mistaken, and had now stirred up a hornet’s nest.
Nowadays, Henry’s speech has taken on additional historical interest, for a reason many would not have dreamed of years ago: the question of how he expressed his controversial thoughts, and if he even backed away from it.
There were, of course, no electronic devices to record verbatim what speakers said. Moreover, as I indicated above, Henry tended to talk extemporaneously. Even his “Give me liberty or give me death” address was a reconstruction by an early biographer, William Wirt.
A more recent biographer, University of Pennsylvania historian Richard Beeman, has sifted through the available documentary records about “If this be treason” and, intriguingly, found one contemporary eyewitness who claimed that, almost immediately after blurting out his statement, Henry hastened to assure the House that he remained a loyal subject of the crown. Doing so, I would suspect, would predispose this group of conservative aristocrats to look more kindly on resolutions that, after all, were rooted in established British rights, such as the right to be taxed by one’s representatives.
Beeman’s biography has been well-received and his research sounds extensively painstaking. On the other hand, there are other reasons to suppose that the traditional account of Henry’s words might not be not that far off the mark.
1) In his summation in the Parsons’ Cause case, Henry had already called into question the moral authority of the King and his ministers to force the Virginia colonists to fund Anglican ministers: “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.” Would he have muted his opposition to a measure even more egregious?
2) Henry might not have cared that much for putting conservatives into the right frame of mind to listen to his arguments. He introduced his resolutions, after all, when many were away from Williamsburg. All he needed was 24% of members to reach a quorum. The group ended up passing four of the seven resolutions he introduced.
3) Another eyewitness retained a vivid memory of what he heard. Thomas Jefferson, then a 22-year-old student at William and Mary College, happened to be standing in the doorway of the House of Burgesses during Henry’s electrifying address. Years later, political differences would convert Henry and Jefferson from allies into foes.
But even after this point had been reached, Jefferson still remembered Henry’s opposition as blunt and full-throated. "I well remember the cry of treason," Jefferson wrote afterward, "the pause of Mr. Henry at the name of George III, and the presence of mind with which he closed his sentence, and baffled the charge vociferated."
Years later, Jefferson would have had every reason to deprecate Henry’s utterance, if he could have done so. He didn’t, suggesting that knowledge of it was so well-known that to dispute its impact would have been laughable.
Ten years before the outbreak of the American Revolution, Patrick Henry had let the British government know, in no uncertain terms, that opposition to its meddling in colonial affairs would not be confined to Massachusetts. Ten years before Lexington, he had fired his own rhetorical shot heard 'round the world.
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