At the beginning of the American Century, the publisher of Time magazine had a vision about presenting the events of his day. His vision involved telling stories through the people who made the stories happen. Henry Luce's idea of biography as history was as controversial when he launched Time as it is now. But regardless of what shortsighted historians or close-minded journalists may think, this method of history can be quite powerful.

Men are often shaped by their times, but great men shape their times. The 18th century was full of great men. Patrick Henry, certainly a candidate for such distinction, shaped much of the political landscape of late 18th century Virginia. To perceive Henry today, he must be seen in the context of the times in which he lived. But to understand Henry's importance, some progress must be made toward an appreciation of the impact he made upon the times in which he lived.

Patrick Henry's influence upon late 18th century Virginia was one of states' rights, conservatism and a democratic belief in the importance of constituent capacity. These beliefs had been forged during America's long foreplay with war, its hawkish war rhetoric and an extended debate over the ways of means of liberty. Unfortunately, two centuries of myth have clouded those beliefs.

The mythology of Patrick Henry overshadows the man it has grown around. Although the same could be said of many throughout the pantheon of those in the American political tradition, the degree to which Henry’s thoughts have been explored has suffered inordinately at the hands of his fame.

On a modest stone tablet in Brookneal, Va., Henry’s tombstone reads: "His Fame, His Best Epitaph." Henry’s fame may be a suitable epitaph, but cutting through its dense mythology requires attention to his words, not his fame. The traditional interpretation of Henry is one of a dangerously heroic statesmanship in a time of Revolution. This image was built from the romantic historical interpretations of William Wirt and George Bancroft. But his actions in the ratification debate are largely ignored. Historians who have addressed Henry, such as Cecilia Kenyon and Gordon Wood, have wielded much criticism toward a perceived lack of faith or a refusal to yield to the post-Revolutionary power creep. The interpretation of Henry as an obstinate localist who lacked "faith" misses the wider importance of his dissent. Henry was willing to challenge the prevailing Virginia elite in 1788. He did this in the name of his constituents because he feared a tyrannical and overpowering government might grow from the seeds that had been clandestinely sowed in Philadelphia the year before.

Patrick Henry was never a member of the small group of landed elites who constituted Virginia’s Tidewater aristocracy. Neither was Henry a pauper. Although he went on to enjoy a life of wealth and privilege, he was born into a family of modest prosperity. His father, John Henry, occupied many stations in Virginia life, such as vestryman for the Anglican Church, justice of the peace, colonel in the militia, chief justice of the Hanover County Court and surveyor of Hanover County. His mother was the widow of John Syme, an influential Virginian who served as colonel in the colonial militia and a was large landowner. In public life, Syme was a member of the county court and member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. In the course of his public life, Syme befriended a well-educated Scotsman named John Henry. Syme and Henry became good friends and after Syme's death in 1731, Henry married the widow Syme. By the time of Patrick Henry’s birth in 1736, the Henrys’ landholdings were considerable.¹

This modest prosperity allowed Patrick Henry the luxury of an education. According to Rhys Isaac’s account of 18th century society, only about half of Virginia farm boys were even able to sign their name.² By contrast, the education of Patrick Henry imbued him with the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic as well as an appreciation for Livy’s History of Rome, an important literary work that saw history in terms human personalities and representative individuals rather than partisan politics.

At the tender age of 15, Henry entered the shop of a Hanover County tradesman as a clerk. After a year, Henry’s father set up young Patrick and his older brother, William, with a store of their own. The decision for Henry to pursue commerce rather than education was motivated by a pragmatic sense of Henry’s best interest rather than economic need as historians Robert Meade and William Wirt incorrectly posit.³ Henry was a poor student disinclined to study and an expensive education would have wasted time and money.

After the Henrys’ store failed, Patrick Henry married Mary Shelton, the daughter of a small farmer. The parents of the young couple established them on a farm with six slaves. After two bad years on the farm, the Henrys were forced to sell their slaves. Henry invested the money from that sale into yet another country store, only to reach insolvency at the age of 23.

That was when Patrick Henry decided to become a lawyer. His fondness of human nature gave him a natural talent for many lawyerly skills. Accounts vary as to how much time Henry spent preparing for his examination in Richmond, but one thing is certain – Henry did not have the luxury of an extended study of the law as had many of his contemporaries. In a letter to William Wirt, Judge Edmund Winston described Henry as a "virtuous young man" who was "unconscious of the powers of his own mind." Because of his "very narrow circumstances," the decision to enter law was "a last effort to support the wants of his family."⁴

In the spring of 1760, Henry presented himself to the board of admission in Richmond and was admitted, albeit hesitantly. Peyton Randolph and John Randolph signed Henry’s license with measured reluctance. George Wythe absolutely refused to sign and Robert Carter Nicholas signed only on the condition that Henry would promise to engage in some further reading.

Henry’s fee books indicate that he took to his new profession well. In the first three and a half years of actual practice, Henry charged fees to 1,185 suits. He also prepared many legal papers out of court and was able to prove his financially troubled father-in-law with a loan.⁵ Patrick Henry had finally achieved success.

In December of 1763, his success became manifest in the minds of his fellow Virginians when he was able to convince a jury to essentially overturn a judge’s ruling in a case which has become known as the "Parson’s Cause."

In the 18th century, ecclesiastical power in Virginia began to wean. When a drought artificially raised the price of tobacco, stipends paid to vestrymen lost value. This sparked several lawsuits. One of those lawsuits was brought by the Rev. James Maury, who claimed that he was entitled to 16,000 lbs. of tobacco. The judge who ruled on this case, Patrick Henry's father, agreed. The decision of how much Maury was to be awarded as a result of this victory was to be made by a Hanover County jury.

Patrick Henry was commissioned to make an argument to that jury for the failed defense in this case. Although coming to a decision on this matter seemed to be a simple matter of arithmetic, Henry was able to convince the jury to virtually overturn the judge's decision.

Henry’s speech to the jury on that cold December morning earned him a place among the finest speakers in Virginia jurisprudence. In it, he argued that "a King, by disallowing Acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerates into a Tyrant, and forfeits all rights to his subject’s obedience."⁶ Henry’s insinuation that the King’s nullification of the Two Penny Act⁷ was against the wishes of his subjects and was, therefore, tyrannical illustrates his deeply held belief in a democratic ideal of political leadership. It was these kinds of radical British reforms after the conclusion of the French and Indian War which caused conservatives like Henry to become weary of British rule in the American colonies.

Instead of awarding the market value of the tobacco, the jury awarded Maury only one cent. Many Virginians took note of the abilities of the young firebrand from Hanover County who was able to win such a skillful victory. His fiery oratorical prose prompted one observer to note that those in earshot of the speech felt "as if they had just been awakened from some ecstatic dream, of which they were unable to recall or connect the particulars."⁸

It is clear that the Parson’s Cause illustrates an erosion in 18th century Virginia of the authority of the Anglican Church.⁹ While Henry’s speech certainly aided in that trend, his view of the relation between church and state should not be inferred from his comments before this colonial jury. Lawyers often argue points for monetary commission and not from personal ideology. Henry was no exception. While personally a deeply religious man, Henry changed his position several times throughout the course of his political career on the relationship church and state should maintain. Although the United States was the first republic in the history of the world to come to a clear separation of church and state, the specific arrangement of that separation had not yet been solidified. Henry’s uncertainty on this issue reflects a general skepticism amongst Virginians about living life after God, an uncertainty which continues to be voiced in the dark social commentary of Douglas Coupland.

Seventeen months after his arguments in the Parson’s Cause, Henry’s name had made its way throughout Virginia political circles and he found himself chosen to fill a vacant seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Henry immediately distinguished his voice as a vehicle for the common Virginian by opposing a scheme for Virginia to cover the debt of a former House speaker called the "public loan office."

When a hot debate erupted in the Virginia House of Burgesses about the British Stamp Act, Henry successfully argued for resolutions affirming vigorous rights for the colony. His resolutions stated that the colonial legislative body should have the sole and exclusive right to lay taxes and impositions upon Virginians. To do otherwise, the resolutions suggested, would destroy British as well as American freedom.

"Caesar had his Brutus," Henry proclaimed at the dramatic conclusion of the famous speech in favor of the amendments. "Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third … " Henry was then interrupted with shouts of "Treason!" Continuing, Henry cleverly concluded that "George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it."

John Dickinson

Henry’s bold advocacy of colonial prerogative in the Stamp Act debate was a championing of longheld ideas about the rights and liberties of Englishmen. Opposition to the Stamp Act in the colonies was conservative because it sought a precedent to justify such an act. These conservatives found no such justification by examining precedent and consequentially opposed the Stamp Act. Writing in the most influential pamphlet published in America before 1776, John Dickinson wrote:

Henry's powerful language and bold oratory became renowned, making his name known throughout the colonies. Being the author of the Virginia Resolutions vaulted Henry to a prominent place among influential statesmen. He was sent to every session of the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1765 to 1774.

After Lord Drummond dissolved the Virginia’s House of Burgesses, exiled members met in Richmond to appoint deputies to the proposed colonial congress that was to convene in Philadelphia.¹¹ Henry was one of seven elected to this position. In Philadelphia, Henry’s advocacy for constituent capacity motivated his championship of direct population representation in the parliamentary procedures of the First Continental Congress.

Henry could not accept the proposition that each colony should be represented equally as they were in the federal legislature under the Articles of Confederation. According to John Adams’ synopsis of Henry’s speeches in Philadelphia, Henry felt that because "Government is dissolved," Americans had been cast into a "state of nature."¹² Like Locke, Henry felt that coercive institutions are only justified when they promote liberty and it was clear to Henry that the Stamp Act was not a promotion of American liberty. These ideas of natural rights and social contract theory merged with Henry’s constituency capacity when Henry asserted that "The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." This comment was intended to persuade delegates to think about individual colonies not as separate entities but units of population. As historian Richard Beeman points out:

Henry’s support for the local interests of his constituents illustrates Henry’s democratic belief in the importance of constituent capacity. After the first Philadelphia convention convened, public sentiment for war grew but many were still reluctant. Patrick Henry was not among them. Although Henry was a passionate believer in the value of democratic consent to political action, it seemed clear to Henry that this was a time for leadership.

"When shall we be stronger?" Henry asked members of Virginia’s second revolutionary congress that met five months after the conclusion of the Philadelphia convention. "Will it be next week or next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?" Speaking in favor of resolutions to arm Virginia, Henry wondered, "Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God!" Then, in a dramatic conclusion that would permanently engrave Henry’s name in American history, he proclaimed, "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

Henry's speech in favor of the resolutions to arm Virginia caused "those who had toiled in the artifices of scholastic rhetoric [to be] involuntarily driven to an inquiry within themselves whether rules and forms and niceties of elocution would not have choked his native fire."¹⁴ The resolutions overwhelmingly passed and Henry became chairman of a committee to plan for embodying, arming and disciplining the militia. Two weeks after the fighting at Lexington and Concord had subsided, Henry compelled the receiver general of Virginia to pay 230 pounds as a compensation for gunpowder taken from the public magazine by the governor's order. The money was paid to the Virginia delegates at the general congress in Philadelphia.

Henry then left for Philadelphia to attend the Second Continental Congress. Returning to Virginia two months later, he accepted a position as colonel of the 1st Virginia regiment and would eventually become commander-in-chief of the colony. In April of 1775, after learning of Lord Dunmore's order to seize the ammunition of the colony at Williamsburg, Henry marched militia from Hanover to Williamsburg and returned the munitions to colonial control. These brief posts constitute the totality of Henry's military experience.

As a member of the Virginia convention in Williamsburg, Henry instructed the Virginia delegates in Philadelphia to declare the united colonies free and independent states. In that convention, he was a member of committees which authored the Declaration of Rights and the Virginia Constitution of 1776. Patrick Henry was then elected as the first governor of the state of Virginia.

In 1777, Henry married his second wife, Dorothea Dandridge, two years after his first wife died. Dandridge was a granddaughter of the royal governor Alexander Spotswood and the marriage greatly improved Henry's social standing in the eyes of the Virginia Tidewater aristocracy.

During the war, Henry's ill health forced him to withdraw from public life. Retiring to an estate of 10,000 acres in the eponymous county of Henry, he lived there until 1784 when he returned to the office of governor. After the war, Henry favored the forgiveness and restoration of Virginia Loyalists and opposed Madison's effort to separate church and state.

After refusing a seat in the Philadelphia convention of 1787 because he "smelt a rat," Henry was elected to the Virginia Ratifying Convention to oppose ratification of the document, which had been transmitted from Philadelphia to the states by the general Congress in New York. His speeches to the Virginia Ratifying Convention were multi-dimensional to say the least. Noted William Wirt:

In retirement, Henry established himself in Charlotte County at an estate 38 miles from Lynchburg called Red Hill. A museum to Henry now graces that site at Red Hill and viewers can visit his house, the grounds and the grave of Henry and his second wife.

Henry’s modest grave and simple epitaph point to a very prominent feature of Patrick Henry’s personality – modesty. Although his name has graced history books for at least two centuries and his words have been dutifully memorized by generations of schoolchildren, Henry was modest in life and death. His final days were spent quietly at Red Hill. There, he refused several national and international positions offered to him including secretary of state, senator, chief justice and minister to France. After Virginia’s ratification of the Constitution, President Washington convinced Henry to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives (as a Federalist!), but he died in 1799 before taking the seat. He is remembered as an eloquent and powerful 18th century statesman.¹⁶